Thanks, Steemit, for turning me into a "cryptocurrency expert"

This past weekend I was in Medicine Hat (we have funny city names in Canada) for my brother's wedding.

It was my first time meeting the bride's family, and I couldn't help but laugh when her brother came up to me, shook my hand and said, "Hi there, Wade. Nice to meet you. I hear you're a cryptocurrency expert."

I find this incredibly funny because prior to joining Steemit in July 2016, I had absolutely no idea what a cryptocurrency was. I didn't own bitcoin or any other cryptocurency. Hell, I didn't even understand what "blockchain" meant.

Let me be clear: I'm definitely not a cryptocurrency expert.

However, in the year-and-a-half I've spent blogging on Steemit, I've automatically become a cryptocurrency investor... simply by writing content. And, as my cryptocurrency value has grown, I've become more interested in some of the other coins and what their purposes are.

Two weeks ago I wrote about Steemit's opportunity to market itself as a gateway to cryptocurrency. Anecdotally, I've witnessed a lot of my friends talk about cryptocurrencies, but they have no idea how they go about attaining them. Steemit introduces its new members to the world of cryptocurrency in a fairly user-friendly way.

And, as of right now, that's very appealing. For example, 5 days ago I mentioned that I told 900 Canadian bloggers/writers about Steemit and explained that the website is a gateway into the world of cryptocurrencies.

A few of those bloggers ended up commenting on that post, and I believe some of them have signed up to give Steemit a go. Keep in mind, these are writers who have followings of several thousand people.

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I think that this "gateway to cryptocurrency" marketing angle should be utilized as a way of driving interest to Steemit. In my experience, this has been a powerful method for getting people in my personal circles to give Steemit a try. (Retention is a completely separate challenge!)

After all, if there are people out there who consider me to be a cryptocurrency expert, that goes to show the power of this platform, which has been my primary source of education.