After hearing about the stories from STEEMFEST and the excitement surrounding STEEMFEST2, I would LOVE to attend!

Hello! My name is Sevin Wilson and I am 26 years old. I am fairly new to cryptocurrencies. I first heard of Bitcoin back in 2013, but did not do the due diligence I should have done. As a subscriber to Doug Casey's newsletter, I received an email in February 2017 from Teeki Tiwara, the editor of Palm Beach Reports. In his email, he mentioned what he believed could overtake Bitcoin someday. At the time, this coin was trading at around $10, but he did not disclose the name. After doing some research, I discovered he was talking about Ethereum. I began to research Ethereum and stumbled upon WorldCoinIndex. One day in March, Steem was the largest percentage gainer. After checking out the price history I thought I would check out the website and see what this coin was all about.

Within minutes of perusing the site, I had to sign up and create an account. A social media site that pays you to blog?!? It seemed to go be true! After getting signed up and confirmed it was off the races. I have a Facebook page, but was never really into it with all of the suppression of information that goes on with it. I have been a huge fan of Twitter as I like to consume news as it happens, especially when it comes to sports. I am a sports junkie. Basketball and Football are the two sports I enjoy the most.

Growing up I played travel basketball from the age of 10 until 17. My friend @drewgiudice and I were the only "cream" in a lot of "coffee" as we used to say. Here is a picture from our 5th grade team.

My father is 5 ft. 8 in. and my mother is 5 ft. 2 in. so I realized playing any further than high school was unlikely. Even though my official playing days may have been over, I could still coach and teach the game to others. I coached the middle school and a travel team for 3 years and had great succcess. Here is a picture of our travel team from the last year I coached.

I realized that although sports is a true passion, it was damn near impossible to make a living in it without playing at a high level. Another passion of mine is investing and economics. I am a huge proponent of sound money (gold and silver) and it dovetails perfectly with cryptocurrencies. I have been a proponent of precious metals for the past 6 years and have stressed the importance of owning them to friends, family, and anyone else who will listen - and even some that didn't want to listen. I personally feel the everyone should hold at least 10% of their net worth in precious metals with a portion in gold and the majority in silver. Every time someone purchases a small amount of precious metals I get excited inside!

How Steemit has changed my life?

I have not found a place with many like minded individuals. The majority of the people I currently interact with outside of the Steemit community are too consumed with crap that isn't that important. The people here are different! There is a niche that every individual has and with Steemit, you can find that niche and prosper. I have distanced myself from many people that I used to interact with because they weren't like-minded and not making me a better person. Although I have yet to meet anyone from Steemit besides the three people I encouraged to sign up, I feel like I have hundreds of new friends.

• We may not speak the same language.
• We may not have the same political views.
• We may live thousands of miles apart.

But from the idea of a few guys (ned, dan, and others), a bond has been formed by the members of the community. A bond that cannot be broken. I have realized that relationships are so important in life.

Growing up people always said,

"It's not what you know that is important. It's who you know."

A few weeks ago my friend took this a few steps further when he said,

"It's not who you know that is important. It's who knows you."

At a loss for words I was completely stunned at this. It was so simple, but made so much sense. Yeah I know Mark Zuckerburg and Jeff Bezos, but they have no idea who in the world I am.

This is precisely what I look to gain from attending STEEMFest2! I want to build personal relationships with people all over the world so that together we can make the world a better place. Whether through Steemit or another project, I believe the relationships made through Steemfest will be for life.

What will I bring to STEEMFest2?

I am not a talented developer. I really do not have any programming capabilities whatsoever. I have built a few websites, but that is the extent of development I have done. I am involved in a tech startup, but more on the design side of things.
I used to be very introverted and still am to a large degree, but I love to meet new people and see if there is any way I can help them by connecting them with other people so that both parties benefit.
I like to think outside of the box to solve a problem. Most problems in the world can be solved simply by gathering the correct people and using our brains to bounce ideas of. Anything is truly possible!

Plane Ticket

The plane ticket is the major obstacle.
The local airport is insanely expensive to fly out of from anywhere! Flying to Lisbon is no exception!

With that being said, there are some more affordable options! Flight out of Miami, which would require a drive or bus ride of 8 hours each way, but that is totally fine with me!

A special thanks to @theprophet0 for this contest! You have received my Witness vote!!

If anyone else is interested in joining the contest for a free flight to STEEMFest read more here