FollowBTCNews Witness 18 Weeks On: We Finally Put Together a Big Ol’ Celebration Update

Today, we want to thank you for four and half months of support for our Steemit witness efforts. FollowBTCNews is in position #51 and climbing — we've been working hard to benefit Steemit, and in turn many of you believe in and support us.

Here are some of our achievements since our inception. We know we kind of suck at promoting our work, and our updates are usually straightforward mentions of tools and the like. Every once in a while, we'll share a celebration update like this to showcase some of the behind the scenes stuff that's been happening.

• Over 2000 blocks and counting!
• Only 2 missed blocks as we set up and adjusted our witness for peak performance
• Launched a new seed node at seed.followbtcnews.com:2001
• Launched a Full Public RPC Node for all developers, in conjunction with the Minnow Support Project at steemd.minnowsupportproject.org
• 50% of all witness proceeds are delegated or donated to Minnow Support Project or other Steemit project initiatives
• We built and host the official MSP website at http://minnowsupportproject.org
• We launched a Steem tools website in ongoing development, free for anyone to use at http://steemistry.com
• The first tool, to track @ mentions, can be found at http://steemistry.com/steemit-mentions-tool/
• The Steemistry tools website is now on SteemTools.com thanks to @roelandp and @transisto
• We've developed and launched a script to automate a number of functions for the Minnow Support Project, including real time tracking of delegations, ensuring accurate votes for supporters, and daily vote decay to help us identify and guide spam posters towards better Steemit habits
• A new tool for analyzing keywords and tags is almost out of development, to help users choose effectively, accurately, and to improve both payouts and Steemit content
• We've built and are in pre-launch of a fast and beautiful new Steem Blockchain transactions explorer
• We've built and are in pre-launch of a new tool for Steemians using Blocktrades, to easily and clearly verify their transcation on the Steem blockchain
• We've taken over hosting both the MSPWaves Radio website http://mspwaves.com and the MSPWaves Radio itself to our servers
• I have joined the Minnow Support Project body of governance in addition to being an MSP Witness, with a position of Vice Chair
• Both @FollowBTCNews and @crimsonclad have been listed as 'Daily Top 200 Minnow Curators On Steemit' consistently, as we work to support a growing pool of new content creators
• We are now official sponsors of the Steem Fantasy Football League run by @ats-david (you should play with us - it's awesome!)

We have many more projects in the works for Steemit, so stay tuned. As we complete our current tools and scripts and get closer to launching the exciting new stuff, we'll be sharing them with you for your input and for use by all Steemians.

We work full time on Steem and Steemit related projects, leadership, and witness functions.

When I say we, I am referring to my witness partner @crimsonclad. We have two diverse and complimentary skillsets which allow us to be twice as effective at fulfilling our witness duties! You've got two very dedicated individuals working our butts off for Steemit, Steem, the Minnow Support Project, and for everyone on the chain. To all of you who have voted, for us, we keep working to make sure you continue to feel confident in your vote. If you're still on the fence, take a look at our work, let us know what you'd like to see, and allow us to earn it.

Please consider adding one of your witness votes to us at https://steemit.com/~witnesses

If you ever have any concerns or wish to discuss new ideas to benefit Steemit, don't hesitate to hit one of us up on Discord or Steemit.chat

And finally...

@overkillcoin created this amazing new animation for our witness, and we can't thank him enough. It absolutely cracks me up! Jeffbot is now on the job, confirming blocks and strengthening the chain 😂