![tibd57j09o.png](https://img.esteem.ws/tibd57j09o.png)


I've got family visiting who were awesome enough to come visit me for my birthday so I haven't had much time for Steem, but this birthday when people asked me what I wanted I told them all the same thing...

# Crypto

I was not kidding. So everyone that got me a gift just gave me cash and I bought Steem with it. Today I powered up a little over 1k Steem which pushed me over the 10k mark :D At a time where lots of people are frustrated and fed up, I gotta say I'm still pretty positive.

For all the people who are here from day to day, but may not be into all the developments let me do a quick recap for some of my favorite developments happening.

Steemit has finished MIRA which makes the Steem blockchain pretty bulletproof. It dramatically reduces the cost of running a node(what makes the blockchain function) and puts in place necessary infrastructure for scaling.

Blocktrades finished the work proposal system a while back which will be implemented in the next hardfork of Steem which will facilitate community funded projects and developments.

Steem Engine released their version of SMT's which gives anyone who wants it the functionality of SMT's RIGHT NOW. Which in case you don't know allows anyone to create their own Steem like token that can be distributed by proof of brain, can be staked, etc. So if you don't like something about the way Steem works you can make your own version of Steem and set it up however you want. Very cool stuff.

@elipowell was interviewed by @andrarchy and talked a lot about what Steemit has been up to for the past several months, basically putting out a huge fire. So now it will be interesting since now that the fire is out we'll be able to see the "new" restructured Steemit working towards thriving instead of just surviving. Again, if you're not keeping up with all this @elipowell is the new Managing Director of Steemit, which if I'm being honest sounds like a title created to let Ned save face, but that's neither here nor there. She's steering the ship now and different team members have been put in leadership roles so hopefully we'll see some rapid progress and positive development from them.

Even though it took a huge dump today, it seems like the market is starting to turn around. As I'm writing this BTC is at $7200, which a few weeks ago we would have been super excited about, but since we got our pinky finger on ~$8500 that ends up being a little downer in the short term. I say screw the short term though, I'm excited about the long term proposition anyway, but yea, it does feel nice having things turn positive. Although since I was buying today, this dip was right on time for me :D

Anyway that's my thoughts for the day. What are yours?