Wow, 2016 in review. I don't even know where to start. I suppose I could go on and on about current events, and all the crazy stuff that seemed to happen on an almost continuous basis. I don't want to dwell on all the negative, but let's touch base on the year in review.

I guess we should of realized we were in for a rocky ride when just two days into 2016 an armed militia took over the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. It lasted about 41 days and for the most part it ended peacefully, but not before taking the life of Robert "LaVoy" Finicum.

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/10/oregon_standoff_timeline_41_da.html

From there we witnessed shooting after shooting in urban areas of unarmed men, followed by incredible backlash from inner city communities. Protestors filled the streets of our major cities, and suddenly law enforcement became targets. Things certainly grew crazy in 2016.

As the year progressed the news was filled with wars, global protests, crashing economies, a mass migration of refugees into Europe, and it seemed at every turn we began to witness chaos on a global level. I honestly can't recall a crazier time in history.

If all this wasn't enough, Britain voted to leave the European Union, and an absolutely insane election distracted most Americans from the world stage as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton took control of the headlines with scandal after scandal in their battle for the White House and the title of next president of the United States.

It seemed most Americans voted for what they thought was the lesser of two evils. Many Trump supporters voted not for Trump but against Hillary Clinton and many from the Clinton camp were really just voting against Trump. What an absolutely crazy election! This all ended with Donald Trump becoming the President Elect for 2017! I'm not even going to get into the email scandals, the hacking, and poor Bernie Sanders getting duped by his own party.

Wow man! What a year!

With all that said, The Dood distracted himself from current events and after a couple years of playing around with the altcoin markets, I began to take it a little more seriously. 2016 was actually a pretty decent year for The Dood.

I met some great people in the cryptocurrency space, the blog on bitcoindood.com started attracting a little attention, and what started out as a way to keep track of cryptocurrency news, accidentally turned into a twitter account of over 5000 followers. The Dood thanks you all for your support and friendship.

With the introduction of Steemit to social networking, I began blogging on two platforms and using Steemit as a way to introduce people to the more personal side of The Dood. I've met some great people on Steemit, and it's great to see a platform that is actually rewarding content creators, while helping people get there various messages out and showcasing their talents. I think Steemit in 2016 has shown the world what cryptocurrency can do for social media, and what we are currently witnessing is just the tip of the iceberg. If I have one prediction for 2017 it will be that social networking is really going to get disrupted with all the new cryptocurrency backed social sites that should be getting unveiled in 2017.

Like the news and the current events of 2016, the altcoin markets seemed to be just as chaotic. Ethereum rose and just when it looked like it was getting ready to break through the sky and head straight for the moon, The DAO was hacked, Ethereum was forked, a new chain was started and Ethereum and Ethereum Classic were born. What a mess.

Hacking in the altcoin space continued with STARTcoin being hacked and their social accounts taken over by hackers posting fake posts and mocking the community. Max Keiser's prediction of 1 start = $1.00 USD was ruined, and the community fell into chaos (again the recurring theme of 2016) as they fought to regain control of their social accounts and begin the arduous task of damage control to repair the STARTcoin brand.

The hacking theme of 2016 continued, as the cryptocurrency investing whale Bo Shen got hacked and many of his coins dumped onto the trading market driving down the price of AUGUR.

Hacking and chaos seemed to be the theme of 2016!

The hacking of 2016 continued with bitcoin making headlines as ransomware extorted millions of dollars in bitcoin from private citizens and big businesses alike. So let's talk bitcoin! We started 2016 around $436.00 and it looks like BTC will end up close to $1000 or more by the beginning of 2017.

More hacking as the bitcoin price rose and Bitfinex got hacked wreaking havoc on the price as the company lost close to $65,000,000 in BTC and ETH. The price dropped from mid 700's to mid 500's then slowly recovered to it's current price in the mid 900's. Towards the end of 2016 things are looking really good for bitcoin!

I guess I'll say it again, JUST WOW! What a year! I'm sure I missed a lot, but these are my memories of 2016. Nobody knows for certain where this is all heading, but as world economies continue to falter, bitcoin continues to rise. It's going to be real interesting to see what direction an America lead by Donald J Trump actually takes. One things for sure, buckle up people I think we're in for one hell of a ride in 2017!

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