HELLO January 2023!

It's the 1st day of the month and that means it's HIVE Power Up Day again! 🎉🚀 Not only that, this marks an ENTIRE year that I've participated in HPUD monthly without fail. 😱

Another month in this year has gone by in a flash! I've joined HIVE since November 2021 and I'm still learning so many new things everyday! I first heard of Hive Power Up Day in January 2022 and all its other acronyms (PUD, PUM, PUH 😂 what a mouthful) and I'm into my 13th consecutive month of participation in HPUD now!

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• I've attained yet another PUM badge for the month! 📅🥳 (at least 1 post everyday!)

Unfortunately, I've not managed to keep up with my 1 post a day routine. The end of year pileup of work and overseas trips that I've had to make this month has made it just about impossible to do so 😭. I will endeavour to continue with it again from this month onwards (hopefully).

_{Ever since I started with the HPUM initiative in 2022, I've tried my best to faithfully make one blog post everyday in an attempt to get the Hive Power Up Month badge. I've managed to make it successfully for 9 out of 12 months in 2022 and will be attempting to get as many as I can again in 2023! 🥳💯}

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Another successful month of making at least ONE post a day with 100% to HIVE powered up (or adding 1 HIVE powered up if I'm a klutz and forget to set the post payout from it's default 50/50 😵). 🥳🥳🥳

This makes it 9 months where I managed this achievement since I discovered and started on my quest of HPUM-ing this year 😜. I still intend to continue on with this really good habit anyway 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 so lets hope I make it again for the next month again. 😁

Blogging regularly and having the HPUM to incentivize me has other tangible benefits too! I've seen my Hive Power grow quite a fair bit. This seems like a good practice which I intend to continue keeping up with!

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🏁How it All Started🏁

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I came onto the Hive blockchain trying to set up an account for SPLINTERLANDS. Prior to this, I had just about ZERO knowledge and experience with any Blockchain. It was pretty confusing to me as a complete novice - much different from how the usual process of setting up an account to play any game goes. 😵

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This led to me googling around, and of course, I stumbled onto all the Hive blogs with their guides. One thing lead to another and I somehow stumbled upon the guys from 🍕Hive.Pizza🍕 who were extremely helpful in answering all my queries and guiding me along. Shoutout to all PIZZA members. JOIN THEIR DISCORD if you need any help!

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⚡️HIVE POWER UP DAY⚡️

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In my VERY FIRST month before before I ever heard about Hive Power Up Day/Month, I was at just 47 HP 😭 (Before Jan 1st 2022).

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This month, before I've even powered up anything at all, I'm already at 2744 HP! 🎉🎉🎉

That's how much the past few months of consistent blogging on HIVE with 100% allocated to Hive Power improved my HIVE account!

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And NOW... AND its POWERUP time! ⚡️💪 (1st January 2023)

Once again, I only have enough HIVE set aside for a 10HP powerup, but I'm sure with my continued efforts to blog with 100% powered up to HIVE, I will be able to grow my Hive Power even more! 🤑

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💰💰💰💸💸💸🤑🤑🤑📈📈📈

I am not using up all my HIVE once again this time round as I have just put in a significant amount of funds into some projects I've been following pretty closely on HIVE.

💰💰💰💸💸💸🤑🤑🤑📈📈📈

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Using https://hivestats.io/ , I was able to pull out a chart showing my daily account growth for the past month too. Great to see that orange graph head upwards continually 📈😄! If only my stocks portfolio and the price of HIVE looked like that too 😂🤑.

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As you can see, blogging on HIVE is the main reason for this growth, with the majority of my author rewards being channeled into my Hive Power AND with no power downs at all. (All thanks to my attempt to chase for the Hive Power Up Month badge 😜) The growing Hive Power accumulated also has the other effect of increasing my Curation Rewards. 🤑🤑🤑

Therefore, to anyone who is doubtful about the benefits of regular blogging and remaining invested in HIVE, I implore you to take a look at my stats and draw your own conclusions. 😊📈👍🏻

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📈💎🙌My Long-Term Plan📈💎🙌

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Now clearly, I wouldn't just spend such an amount on just being able to write and reply in a community. HIVE as a token also has significant value and growth potential. This is the price chart for HIVE since it's inception. As all the HIVE regulars know, HIVE reached its ALL TIME HIGH earlier on in November 2021 at about $3.

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Well, this entire year of 2022 has been getting from bad to worse for the entire crypto industry. After the dizzying heights of ATHs almost everyday in 2021, we've seen entire billion dollar companies wiped off the face of the earth. Luna/Terra, 3 Arrows Capital, Celsius, and the biggest of them all being FTX/Alameda.

The values of all the different cryptocurrencies have plummeted and HIVE itself is no exception. I'd have said it was impossible for HIVE to be at the current price of $0.26 just a year ago, but here we are now.

I believe this is a good time to DCA and accumulate some crypto (or any other asset actually) while everything is at such low prices. It could get worse before it gets better (and it probably would too) but as they say, time in the market - not time the market. 😉

Hopefully it'll pay off one day.

(Obviously, these are just my own opinions too, so please don't take this as some financial advice. I'm definitely NOT any financial expert/advisor 😅.)

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💎🙌🎉🥳🎊WAGMI💎🙌🎉🥳🎊

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I can see the potential in HIVE and am bullish on its future prospects. As they say, diamond hands and HODL 💎🙌, I too intend to just hold onto my HIVE tokens and since I've no intention of cashing out anytime soon, what better way than to participate in HPUD and locking it all in.

Keeping my HIVE powered up as Hive Power also earns about 3% interest and gives me increased returns on my curation. From what I've seen, curation APR ranges anywhere from 4-12% depending on how efficient I am at curating. This sounds low especially in the crypto world, but it is still far superior to any bank interest rates. 💰💰💰
I hope to continue to powerup monthly in this community event whilst also growing my Hive stake. It would be most interesting indeed to chart my monthly progress this way too.

Before I sign off, I would like to thank @thebeardflex @hivetrending and the rest of the guys at the PIZZA DISCORD (join this great community, plenty of events and airdrops and friendly people willing to help!), @traciyork for helping me with lots of questions earlier on about Hive PUD/PUM and also for delegating a big chunk of HP to help in my early blogging days (and also another member of PIZZA!), @namelessnameless , @relf87 & @koodies for all helping me in one way or another in learning about crypto in general. 🎉🥳🎊

I'll see you all again during the next Power Up Day next month with another update! Till then, See you and WAGMI! 💎🙌🏻🦍💪🏻

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