My name is @therealwolf and I am running for Witness!

Vote for @therealwolf as Witness (via active key)

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This post is my Introduction as a Witness and is split in multiple parts:

1.) Introduction

• Who is @therealwolf?
• Quick Facts about me (incl. Story about my Name)
• My current Projects on Steem

2.) Witness Requirements

• Developer Knowledge
• Why am I running for Witness?
• My Vision for Steem

3.) Witness Proposals

• Proposal 1: I will create and work on Projects that improve the Steem Ecosystem
• Proposal 2: I will support positive Contributions to the Steem Ecosystem
• Proposal 3: I will support new Users on Steem and will help them to understand the Steem-Ecosystem better
• Proposal 4: I will take part in important Community-Discussions & Decisions

4.) Final Words & Witness Vote

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1.) Introduction

Who is @therealwolf?

Exactly 160 days ago, I decided to do something, which completely alterred the path of my life.

I found out about something called Steem and decided to create an account on Steemit.com

And to be honest: that was one of the best decisions of my life.

I've been trying to build multiple things on the net, since 2013. But I never had the feeling of this is it until I found Steem.

As you might know - I'm a developer. I'm currently developing for @utopian-io and my own project (@smartsteem). Wrote my first code in 2010 - but never was really good. (funfact: I always thought that I simply weren't able to code complex things). Until I found Steem.

I trained myself to write Javascript, NodeJS and VueJS in 3 months - because I had ideas in my mind that I wanted to realize - but for this I needed the Skills.

Additionally, I see myself also as a developer of business ideas. I like to tinker around here and there - and be creative and disruptive.

And for me - Steem is the perfect playground to build amazing things!

Now, before I go on to the next chapter - a few more quick facts about me:

Quick Facts about me

While I have been doing nearly nothing else than working on Steem and my own projects for the last 5 months - there are a few things that I like to do in my freetime (or before I became addicted to Steem):

• Dancing Salsa (I'm a pretty good dancer - true story ;D )
• Cooking & Eating (Mostly healthy things to keep my energy high )
• Netflix & Amazon Prime for relaxing purposes (Checkout out Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency on Netflix!)
• Casual Gaming (CIV, Northgard, Stronghold; Strategy - but I mostly don't find the time)

Quick Explanation of my Name

The main reason I chose @therealwolf as my nickname was due to my first interest in CryptoCurrencies and my goal to blog about those topics. Additionally, one of my favourite movies is The Wolf of Wall-Street - which is why I named myself Wolf. While the interest is still there, my focus has shifted - however the funny thing is:

The name is still somewhat accurate of me. While many users on Steem are using discord groups to get to know each other and network - I often feel a bit overwhelmed with all that chit-chat and prefer a lone wolf approach. But - one of my goals is to be more active and helpful in the social area - so if you are german - you might find me on the D-A-C-H Discord Channel or in the #witness channel on steem.chat

My current Projects on Steem

Right now, I am working mainly on two different Projects.

• Developing the Registration Module for @utopian-io (you can check it out at https://signup.utopian.io and the Contribution Posts on my profile). Utopian is an amazing project and I'm very glad that I can give my part to help it succeed and will continue to do so.

• Developing and Managing my own project called @smartsteem (incl. @smartmarket) which are basically services to increase the value and visibility on posts through Vote-Buying - but with the big difference to other services that @smartsteem also has a whitelist and that @smartmarket sells Votes from Users.

However, there is a lot more on my mind that I want to focus on - with the goal to improve the Steem-Ecosystem.

2.) Witness Requirements

There are currently Witnesses popping up left and right. And even though I don't want to be one of many - I had the wish to become a witness for about 2 months now and decided that now is the time.

There are different Requirements for a Steemian to be a successful Witness which are split into different topics.

Developer Knowledge

First things first. Part of the Job of a Witness is the running and maintaining of a Witness server.

This can be outsourced, but I believe that a great Witness should have at least a good basic knowledge on how to maintain and keep the server secure, while also making sure to not miss any blocks.

While I am not yet as knowledgeable as @gtg, @someguy123 or @jesta in this area - I'm still pretty decent and above average (due to my work with smartsteem), but my goal is to have a similar competence as the mentioned above. Until then, I will work hard and won't shy away to ask for help if it is necessary.

Technical specs of my Witness Server:

• 32 GB of RAM
• 2x240GB SSDs
• Intel Xeon CPU E3
• 1 GB/s Network based in Germany

For those of you who don't get what the above means:

It's pretty good. I will however upgrade the RAM soon, due to the minimum requirement of RAM rising fast.

Since I'm also planning on hosting a SEED & RPC Node - I might do this in one step.

Why am I running for Witness?

Now, that we got that cleared up - the most important aspect for me is that..

Witnesses are able to BE THE CHANGE that Users are wishing for in Steem.

The job of a great Witness is to make sure that the Steem ecosystem stays healthy and for this - one important aspect is the commitment to Steem.

Which can be simply put into: investing heavy into Steem - to have an incentive to keep the ecosystem healthy. Similar to how proof-of-stake (POS) works.

I'm 110% commited to Steem!

I have currently around 14.000 Steempower which calculated to USD is around 84.000$. (at the current price of 6$ per Steem)

While this is a drop in the water in comparison to people as @freedom - for me, this is more money than I ever had in my entire life. (I've made 90% of this amount through my work for Steem and by this, I understand the value of the Ecosystem)

And I am not planing on powering-down any of it!!

I've lived multiple years on the poverty line and while I hope this never happens again - if it would, I still wouldn't power down, because I believe 110% in Steem!

And this is not some mindless gibberish filled with greed. I truly believe in the technology and the ecosystem and I want to be a part of it!

2 weeks ago, I've created a post called I think I'm in love with Steem where I talked about the extreme usability of Steem. (The post was very spontanious, so don't expect too much of deep subjects)

And the more time passes, the more I realize how Steem is the underdog of CryptoCurrencies.

Just recently, Weiss Ratings rated STEEM with a B- which made it one of the top 5 of all rated Currencies.

Ethereum, in comparison, received a B.

I truly believe that Steem will revolutionize the World - and I want to be a part of it while also helping it grow into the right direction.

My Vision for Steem

Whenever I'm currently meeting a friend or someone I know - one of the first topics I talk about is Blockchain and especially Steem.

Some of them might not like or not understand it, but I just want to share my knowledge and help them, because Steem will be huge.

Right now, most blockchains are struggling with simple problems, like: transactions per second, transaction fees, scalability and most importantly: use-cases. (What do we need 5 different Bitcoin Forks for?)

Steem - might not be perfect - but it has all those in check.

Source

Transactions per Second? I'm not completely sure on how many exactly, but Steem is currently only at 0.13% workload.

Transaction-Fees? 0. There is a minimum amount of 0.001 Steem that has to be transferred - which is 1 Steem Satoshi. But nothing is lost while sending.

Scalability? Transaction-Workload is currently below 1% - even though Steem processes 2 times the Transaction amount of Ethereum.

And the most important part: Use-Case

What good are 10 different alternatives to Bitcoin as a Currency, if they are currently not getting used? In comparison, Steem is not only a currency but also a utility and has over 60.000 active Users daily. (Source)

The biggest reason why Ethereum got so big, was due to ERC20 Tokens. And now with Smart-Media-Tokens just around the corner, Steem will draw more and more attention.

Am I saying that Steem is perfect? No. But is Steem pretty darn good in comparison to other Blockchains? Oh yeah!

Ok - but what is my vision?

To answer this - let me quote something @ned said in a recent interview:

In the next 5 years, my vision is to have 100.000 Entrepreneurs building Apps and Businesses on Steem. - Ned Scott

How awesome is that?

My goal is it to build at least one, but preferably multiple Apps / Businesses on Steem - and to support Users who want to do that as well!

Ned also said that Steemit is simply the first example - and I completely agree with him.

In my vision, Steem will become the crypto-currency & building-ground for a whole generation of Social Media.

We have already amazing projects like @dtube (youtube), @utopian-io (github), @dlive (twitch), @chainbb (phpBB-forum), @dsound (soundcloud), @dmania (9gag), @busy.org (facebook), @zappl (twitter) next to Steemit. (Here is a full list made by @adept: https://buildwithsteem.com/)

Some of them are better than others in my personal opinion - I especially like dtube and utopian but I feel that everyone is trying their best to use the existing framework that Steem gives to build something.

And this: is simply amazing!

But there are so many ideas that are just waiting to be build upon Steem.

And I want to help!

3.) Witness Proposals

Proposal 1: As a Witness, I will create and work on Projects that improve the Steem Ecosystem

This is my personal biggest goal as a Witness - to focus my time and energy on Projects which are improving Steem. As I previously said - I'm invested heavily into Steem and I want to see a healthy growth!

I'm already working on a new Project, but it is not yet ready to be shown to the public.

Proposal 2: As a Witness, I will support positive Contributions to the Steem Ecosystem

I believe that ones own stake of Steempower can have a tremendous positive influence and I want to use it to support Users who are actively improving the Ecosystem.

Additonally, I will also take part on improving the Ecosystem with my Contributions

Proposal 3: As a Witness, I will support new Users on Steem and will help them to understand the Steem-Ecosystem better

More and more People are are coming to Steem, often from other Social Media Sites.

As for example - already influencial Youtuber who are starting to create Videos on dtube.

But the thing is - dtube is not simply a copy of Youtube.

It has a similar look, but under the hood it works completely differnt.

My goal is it, to make the transition as easy as possible while giving them all the needed information they need to be successful on Steem.

Proposal 4: As a Witness, I will take part in important Community-Discussions & Decisions

Last but not least - I will also take part in Discussions & Decissions about important Topics regarding the Steem Ecosystem - as for example the Discussion about the SBD Price Peg.

I believe that it is extremely important for Witnesses to take a stance in these Discussions while also being authentic and keeping integrity. I wouldn't change my Opinion, simply to get more Witness Votes. However, I want to keep an open mind to new ideas and are able to receive and think about them.

Now - as a quick teaser of my thoughts about the current SBD-Peg Discussion:

While I am in agree of the need for a SBD which is pegged to the Dollar, I don't believe in enforcing it right now - but I would like to create a seperate Post about it.

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4.) Final Words & Witness Vote

I've taken quite a lot of time writing this Post - because I want it to reflect how much Committment and Love I feel for Steem.

But I wondered when it would be a good time to post it. I wondered if it would be better to let a few more actions speak first, before I create my Proposals.

However, I believe that I have many Qualities that are needed for a Great Witness and would be grateful if you would vote for me.

Would you please vote for me as Witness?

Vote for @therealwolf as Witness (you need your active key)

You can also vote for me directly through steemconnect

Now, if you are not yet sure if you should vote for me. I'm (nearly) always available for a chat on discord / steem.chat. Otherwise, please follow me on Steemit for up-coming Posts & Projects :)

Thank you so much!

Wolf

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