Welcome! I hope you take the time to share more of your background.
There is on conflict between Powering Up and holding on to your Steem. If you plan to hold for medium to long term (1+ years) then powering up is the best way to preserve and magnify the value of your Steem and your influence. The only down side to powering up is that it limits the rate at which you can sell. For those who are prone to emotionally dump at the low points, powering up can help you stick to your long-term investing strategy.
I like how that concept works. Long term supporters have an incentive to power up. Currently I am leaning toward using my steem to power up.
Since you asked a little bit about me. I've been into bitcoin/cryptocurrency for 2 years now. Obviously started with bitcoin and the two other projects I follow are ethereum and dash. I've been heavily involved in the darkcoin/dash community for 2 years now and that is where most of my focus goes into. I love computers, technology, decentralization, open source. I host a podcast at darq.io - and a new one starting at the end of this month on dashpaymagazine.com - Ill be attending the d10e. Event in July http://www.d10e.org/ - Dash will have a booth there so Ill be volunteering at the booth.
I'm also a full time carpenter and I love to surf. Thanks for the warm welcome.