If you are frequently hanging out in Crypto Twitter, phrases like “XYZ has so many partnerships and a real world use case” or “hodling XYZ is a no-brainer, it's got awesome tech” will quickly resonate to you as these are commonly thrown around by those trying to make the case for the tokens they support.

However, while there is no doubt many of the projects in the crypto space do seem very promising judging by their tech and the problem these aim to solve, this doesn't automatically turn them into a good investment opportunity.

During my time following the crypto space, I have seen how enthusiasts, investors, and some times even those working on the projects themselves seem -intentionally or not- to use the theoretical technological edge of the project they advocate for to paint a pretty picture for prospective investors looking for attractive opportunities to jump in, hiding the line between great tech and a sound investment. But again, great tech (even if it becomes widely adopted), doesn't necessarily translate into good ROI.

If a project has that line between it being good tech and a good investment then probably it is not worthy of your hard earned money as a prospective investor. For this reason, when researching crypto projects, it is part of your due diligence to to ask yourself: Does this project have that line hidden somewhere? And if so, where is it?

We have quite a few examples of this in the crypto space. In fact, until proven otherwise, pretty much every single project that can end up being a bad investment despite giving way to breakthrough technology.

Let's have a look at Nano (www.nano.org) for instance. Sitting at rank 54 at time of writing, Nano is arguably the fastest digital asset in the space, it is not mineable (eco-friendly), the total supply (at 133,248,297 tokens, fairly scarce for its use case) has been already distributed quite fairly via a Captcha faucet (The largest hodler is actually Binance's cold wallet with 10 million at the time of writing and the largest non-exchange wallet only has a balance of 1.6 million, just over 1% of the supply: Source).

At the time of writing the median transaction confirmation time of Nano was 0.674 seconds. Much faster even than XRP. Source

Nano is not only the fastest digital asset, where the reasonable amount of tokens were distributed fairly (and it's unlikely to be deemed a security), it is also the cheapest one to transact in terms of fees, as it is feeless. That's right! Fees are zero. zip. nada!

Ok this seems to much goodness, let's recap. Nano is:

✔️ Fast (subsecond fast).

✔️ Feeless (0)

✔️ Still scalable

✔️ Decentralized

✔️ Just over 133 million total supply (scarce compared to i.e. XRP's 100 billion).

And let's add:

✔️ A vibrant focused community

✔️ Constant improvements

✔️ Awesome apps (See Natrium Wallet or BrainBlocks)

What a dream right? Why is this coin in rank #54 and not directly #1, or even in the Top Ten? It ticks all the boxes! It's great tech!!

Well, judging by its price action, the market doesn't seem to think so...

Do you think XRP has been a wild ride? Nano went from $37.62 USD ATH in Jan 2nd 2018 to only $0.34 in March this year! Source: CMC

The philosophy of Nano involves doing one thing and to do it seamlessly: transfer value. It's use case is digital money, and has all the potential to reach it. So far it seems to be struggling with its adoption.

With all the features listed above, it is hard to understand how Nano went from $37.62 closing in to the Top Ten in market cap to just $0.34 during the mid-March 2020 crash and hasn't gained momentum in between. Although it also proves the point that awesome tech is not one-to-one with a good investment.

Nano's tech is exceptional, but if an inferior technology proves that it is just good enough,it may end up making Nano an overkill, which would be a real shame, as I really like Nano and would like to see it succeed. By the way, this post is not intended to take shots at this project (The same exercise could be done virtually with any other coin in CMC).

So what is playing against Nano? Does its dev team have the right set up to work on the marketing side to raise awareness and boost mainstream adoption? Is it easy to use? How is about fiat on/off ramps and liquidity? Are stablecoins good enough? Is there an invisible line hidden somewhere? If so, where is it?

Header Photo by KAL VISUALS on Unsplash

The above is just personal opinion from a fellow clueless crypto enthusiast and shall not be taken as financial advice. Disclaimer: I do hold some Nano at the time of writing along with other digital assets.

Back in February, after the nth sudden dump in the crypto markets happened, it seemed a good idea for me to turn to some humor to forget a bit about it, giving way to a post titled “I came for the money, but stayed for the .memes Vol.1” where I shared some of the funniest crypto memes and GIFs I have found so far as a way of lightening up a little, and hopefully share some laughs with my dear readers.

Although there haven't been any dumps lately, this week's news around XRP and ODL haven't been particularly exciting, at least at a first glance. This made me remember my post from February and I felt once again the need for a good old humor fix!

This time around though, I am not sharing the funniest memes I found but I have taken the challenge to try and create some. I am not sure if my Meme Creator skills are good enough to post them in a my blog, but I guess there are worse ways to cope with frustration 😅...

https://imgur.com/a/lIWE4DV

Anyway, without further ado...here are...

XRP maxis be like...

Actually made this one on [Imgur](https://imgur.com/gallery/8p6aCRb)

What was my password for that shady exchange again? Haven't logged in in ages...

Let's take a little detour. What could go wrong?

This is really ticking me off!

Please, sir. Can I unread this?

Or maybe I should stop listening to my self

I hope you've enjoyed these memes. If you laughed at least at one of these, then I consider my mission for today as complete 😀. What's your favorite XRP meme? I'd like to see it on Twitter!

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

As the economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic deepens in the Developing World due to the economic downturn, the situation has become even more critical for remittance dependent economies as more and more migrants become unable to keep supporting their loved ones back home.

On that subject, a few days ago I stumbled upon this extremely insightful interview with Dilip Ratha, World Bank's Lead Economist on Migration & Remittances, touching the threat to the flow of remittances.

In this interview, part of the World Bank Live series titled “How Can we keep Remittances Flowing?”, a crucial question is posed for which answers need to be found from different angles. Most of these are covered by Dilip Ratha during the interview, ranging from including migrants in relief policies to labeling money transfer firms as essential business to mitigate disruption.

Ahead of starting the conversation, which lasts about twenty minutes, the interviewer, Paul Blake (who has also a role at the World Bank as External Affairs Officer) goes back to an earlier exchange he had with Ratha back in December 2019 when remittances had a completely different outlook. In this discussion Ratha mentioned a few facts that highlight the magnitude of remittances worldwide:

💬 2019 remittances totaled a whopping 550 billion USD to poor countries, exceeding foreign direct investment from multinationals to these economies.

💬 Remittances are around 3x the size of all development aid sent to these countries.

Dilip Ratha's opening comments went in the direction of stressing the criticality of the situation around international remittances, stating that the World Bank foresees a 20% drop for 2020 (From 554 billion to 445 billion USD), indicating a lifeline to poor countries is ruptured, as a result of the loss of jobs because of the pandemic.

The main impact will come from the fact that people are not getting jobs, so migrants are work vulnerable during times of crisis and they will lose their jobs or their incomes will fall, so their ability to send money will go down.
There are of course other spill over effects that come from the economic activity goes down then there are ripple effects so to say.

Dilip Ratha also gives a bit more context on this scenario, pointing out that there is about 270 million migrants around the world, who tend to be concentrated in large cities (prone to lock downs). Furthermore, he points out that for every migrant there may be from three to four or even more people on the other side of the remittance corridors that strongly rely on the money received, which is mostly used to cover basic life expenses like food, medicines and education.

The discussion also covered the industries impacted the most by COVID-19 including money transfer providers themselves, whom according to Ratha should be added to the category of 'essential businesses' to still allow for those migrants that are able to send money back home to continue to do so, given that most of the remittances are managed cash-to-cash, by sending and receiving the money via physical locations.

Interestingly, however, Dilip Ratha also mentioned the risk of cash as a transmitter to the virus and how this is still a risk:

Most people in the world do not have access to such IT or digital means for sending money home.
80 to 85% of the money sent internationally is cash-to-cash, and we know cash is not OK now also because of the risk of the virus.

While adding money transfer services as an essential business is a great idea to help maintain the flow of remittances in the short term, the risk of transmission via cash alone seems as a reason strong enough for developing digital means of payments that are widely accessible.

Also to put things in perspective, Ratha pointed out that during the financial crisis of 2008, the drop in international remittances was around 5% (and bounced back by 2010) compared to the 20% drop foreseen as an effect of COVID-19.

In terms of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dilip Ratha called for the inclusion of migrants in relief measures taken by the governments as the most important policy recommendation, in addition to the urgent need of bringing the unbanked to the banking sector specially in remittance recipient economies so they can make use of digital means to send and receive money.

With so much happening in the World, it is essential that we don't lose sight of the serious negative impact that a prolonged drop in international remittances would have on the lives of millions of people, most of them already in distress as their own sources of income have also been severely disrupted. Technologies and policies that ensure financial inclusion can't come soon enough.

https://www.pscp.tv/w/1gqxvEVVlXaJB

If you are interested in watching the session, you can find it in the link above.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

This is the most bitter project update I've had to write to date, as on top of the sanitary and economic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, this past weekend Tropical Storm Amanda has hit my country El Salvador killing at least fifteen people, including an eight year old boy after the house he was in at the time of the storm collapsed.

https://news.yahoo.com/tropical-storm-amanda-least-14-105230050.html

Almost every country in the world has asked their population to stay at home to help fight COVID-19. But what happens when you live in a place so unsafe that it can pose a threat to your own life? This needs to change, and we need to make safe homes for everyone everywhere one of our top priorities as we walk out of this pandemic. Dignified homes for all needs to become part of our new normal.

With COVID-19 lock down bringing families under the poverty line and natural disasters still hitting us regardless of how frail our situation is, the mission of the One More Home project is now more important than ever, and so is the energy and motivation to reach the goal of helping New Story Charity build at least three homes in the next three years, as part of their Architects Program.

One More Home, migrated to Uphold

After Wietse Wind announced the XRP Tip Bot -the backbone of the One More Home XRP fundraiser- was going to be migrated to Uphold, the process to complete the switch over to Uphold was completed successfully.

The migration took two steps. The first one, to move the XRP balance at the time of migration to the new XRPL address:

https://twitter.com/WietseWind/status/1262735449950486529?s=20

The second step involved migrating the account to Uphold. It was a great pleasure to see the first donation come through as it came from a strong supporter of the project and the GSG charities, @sandking1252:

https://twitter.com/onemorehome/status/1266100373573550082?s=20

A big thank you to Wietse for having helped out monitor the withdrawal of 51385 XRP to the new address and to Sandking for his continuous and generous support. Also a huge thanks to the XRP Community for always standing behind this initiative.

One More Home in Figures

As every month, here are some interesting facts and figures around the progress of the One More Home campaign so far:

Micro-donations: 22518 XRP Tips

XRP via micro-donations and direct deposits: 32912.353277

XRP via ILP deposits (Coil streams and boosts): 21553.462315

Current XRP Balance Tip Bot: 0.1252 XRP (US$0.03)‬

Current XRP Balance XRPL Address: 53755.815592 (US$11031.55)

Total XRP converted to USD: 710

USD via campaign page: US$3425.00

Total raised up to date worth:

Which means, the goal of the project US$30000 is currently 48.19% funded.

Header Photo: New Story Charity Campaign Assets

Ever since Nixer announced the possibility of issuing your own tokens (IOUs) on the XRPL leveraging on Xumm and Xumm.Community, I had been aching to go ahead and learn how to issue an IOU on the XRP Ledger myself. One of the reasons I hadn't done it, apart from the lack of time, was the lack of a good name, because I really didn't want to go with Moncho Coin.

But now I finally have found some time and a name (and I must say, I love it!). Finding that name took some research, I decided to start by going way back in the history of my country, El Salvador. I mean way, way back to the pre-Columbian era (The Classic Maya period, more specifically) when our Mayan ancestors used cocoa beans as their currency. No, I'm not kidding! It's all over the internet! Check out this article from Newsweek, for example:

https://www.newsweek.com/ancient-maya-used-chocolate-money-1001513

Cool! I found a motive. But I still needed a name. Luckily, as I continued my research I found this post in the website of the Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador where the name of the cocoa-backed currency appeared:

Even though, bartering was a way of trading until XX century, the use of cacao for exchanging value dates all the way back to the rise of the Mayan civilization. The Xontle was the cacao’s [cocoa's] monetary unit and was made up of 400 cacao [cocoa] almonds.

There it was! The Xontle (XTL). Now, just to be clear, XTL is a cocoa-inspired token created for educational purposes, and not a cocoa-backed stablecoin 😬. So if I send you 1 XTL don't expect anyone to give you 400 cocoa beans in exchange, although it would be pretty cool!

The Easy IOU Process

Now, the following is not meant to be a how-to guide for you to create IOUs via Easy IOU. It is just a selection of screenshots I took throughout the process.

If you wish to create your own IOU, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the concepts behind IOUs and read carefully the instructions during the process and that you ensure that you understand what you are doing.

To issue XTL, I went to xumm.community Easy IOUs! feature (2nd option in the website's main menu...

And followed the yellow brick road:

After reading the instructions in step 1, I proceeded to make sure I fulfilled the requirements and paid the 5 XRP fee.

And here it is...the historic moment when the chocolate printer went brrrrrr 😅

And the rest of the steps were pretty straight forward (although you have to read carefully). With everything it took me a bit less than half an hour to complete the process...

Et voilà. Xontle is now an issued token in the XRPL 😎.

The process overall is very well explained and the consequences of each of the choices are clearly presented. A big shout out to Xumm.Community for this awesome feature. I think these are the 5 XRP I have enjoyed the most spending!

Wrap-Up

Bringing Xontle to the XRP Ledger was not only a lot of fun, I also achieved many things: I learned how to issue an IOU on the XRPL, I got to read a bit more about the history of money and most importantly I brought a piece of cultural identity from the Mayas to the XRP Ledger.

It is a great feeling for me, to honor a currency that was used centuries ago by bringing it to a digital form.

Photo by Pablo Merchán Montes on Unsplash

Premium Content for Coil Members: Instructions to receive 1,000,000 XTL.

For this edition of XRPLORE, I am thrilled to cover XRPSCAN, a clean and and very intuitive block explorer for the XRP Ledger released on BETA in October 2018. Personally, I really like XRPSCAN's UX as it offers the unique advantage of “speaking the same language” as other legacy block explorers of other cryptocurrencies, making it appealing for users who are already familiar with these.

Before I jump into the details, I would like to thank XRPSCAN for having completed the verification process on One More Home's XRPL address which was activated last month, as it gives reassurance to the community that this is the address belonging to the project:

Link

Home Page

As you land on the home page of xrpscan.com, the first thing to notice is the main set of live statistics displayed on the upper section of the page, including ledger closed (you can see it ticking), along with key daily stats (payments count, total transaction figures, accounts created) and current ledger closure and transaction times.

Right underneath of the stats bar, there are three sections: Validated Ledgers, Validators and XRPL Stats.

Validated Ledgers

The validated ledgers section offers a fantastic view of the sequence of the last ledgers closed and interestingly, a view of the destroyed XRP in each ledger. This is a unique visualization which serves as a reminder that XRP is burned with every ledger closed.

Validators

The Validators section in the home page shows a selection of XRPL validators (starting with UNL), of the full list which can be accessed by going to “Registry”.

Here is a screenshot of how the validator registry looks like:

XRPL Stats

The XRPL stats section of the homepage displays an interesting mix of transaction-related statistics for the day (in UTC timezone). Interestingly you can already see how many accounts have been deleted on this time frame since the amendment allowing for XRPL address deletion was recently put in place.

From there, you can access a more detailed page by going to “Metrics”, which is Disneyland for stats junkies like me 😬 as it shows totals, transactions by type (payments, escrows, offers, etc) and by result (successful, unfunded, etc). The metrics section is very robust and has many different visualizations. I invite you to check it out while giving you a small sneak peek: The chart showing account deletions since this feature was rolled out earlier this month.

The Explorer

Now back into the homepage, the explorer can be accessed by entering either account, name, transaction hash, ledger or validator address in the search bar located in the upper right corner of the page. Here is how it looks like when searching for One More Home's XRPL address:

Oh and by the way, thanks to a typo I did in one of the searches, I discovered XRPSCAN has the coolest “404: Not found message“ I have ever seen: The Riddle of Strider from Lord of the Rings:

In addition to obtaining XRPL data, the explorer nicely presents different further related data in tabs, for example the different balances (total, reserves and spendable balance) of the account, and also several other bits of information like accounts activated, escrows, ancestry (think of the family tree of the account), an analytics tab showing a chart with payments to the account, etc.

For example, here is what the “Analyze” tab looks like (It allows you to download the chart in different formats: PNG, JPEG, PDF).

Other Features

In addition to the explorer, the statistics, validator lists and ledger information, XRPSCAN also shares further information for the XRP Community.

Amendments

The amendments page accessible from the main menu on the upper section of the home page shows the voting info and enabled status of the latest amendments to the XRPL that have been proposed, as per the last voting round.

Documentation

Also, the API doc can be accessed via the docs section from the main menu, which includes an integration guide, guidelines on contributing (including the process for account identification) and contact details.

XRPSCAN on Socials

XRPSCAN is present on social media, and is constantly providing updates about the latest improvements and new features added:

https://twitter.com/xrpscan/status/1263453285429637120?s=20

so don't forget to give this awesome project a follow on Twitter!

https://twitter.com/xrpscan

And if you're not a fan of Twitter, you can also follow the project on:

XRP Chat:

https://www.xrpchat.com/profile/21967-xrpscan/

And Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/user/xrpscan

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Premium content for Coil Members: An insightful interview with XRPSCAN

One year ago today, I started my journey here in the Coil Blogs platform!

https://media.giphy.com/media/dCXkBF4WzCTLIkTNYs/giphy.gif

It was with a post titled “Why One More Home?” where I explained why I decided to start One More Home, a project aiming to raise XRP to help fighting homelessness.

Shortly after, as I only posted once more the next month an update about One More Home announcing we had reached 17000 XRP raised, my journey started seeming like another failed blogging attempt (I failed spectacularly with my WordPress blog many times a few years ago). Although, this time around I had a better (and very valid) excuse: The birth of my second child.

Anyway, fast forward to September/October last year and with things a bit more settled at home, the blogging bug started itching again in good part as I started seeing signs of life around the Coil Blogs through mentions of the CBC in my Twitter timeline and initiatives like Patricia C's -may I say genius- idea of starting a thread to find Coil creators on Twitter as the Coil platform didn't have a search function back then.

https://media.giphy.com/media/d3mlE7uhX8KFgEmY/giphy.gif

Here's the thread:

https://twitter.com/PattyAlexx/status/1172940782199869446

So I dropped my Coil creator link in Patricia's thread, eventually reached out to Ken Melendez to apply to become part of the Content Builder's Club I started hearing so much about, and started letting my mind run with ideas to revive my blog beyond the One More Home updates.

The first blog series I came up with was The Blab, a series of interviews with members of the XRP Community about anything other than XRP. The Blab was closely followed by XRPLORE, which is probably my favorite blog to write as I get to learn more about the XRP Ledger and the outstanding group of people building on it.

After these two series, ideas of new ones just kept popping up in addition to a few standalone posts: INSPOtlight, The Bull Run Files, The Epic XRP Community Tweets and a more personal Vagabonding. I was feeling I was on fire.

But why was I so fired up? I didn't recognize myself! I was pushing boundaries, finding my place in the platform and having a blast. It was all because I found a vibrant and caring community that provided me the encouragement I needed to avoid my new adventure to end up in just another blogging crash and burn.

Maybe I got a little too fired up, and had to take it down a notch because of -you know- priorities. With two little ones at home one's got to pick their battles, so I decided to write less and take other difficult decisions like leaving the CBC (It's a wonderful group of people, and I really miss hanging out there, but I just do not have enough time to do so right now).

In any case, I am thrilled to be part of this awesome community of creators. I'm having so much fun writing and exchanging ideas as I've also enjoyed the high quality content coming up every day, and plan to continue to do so at least until it's time again to pick my battles.

My Why(s)

This year in the Coil platform has not only enabled me to preserve my why but also to strengthen it, as this has become my go-to platform to provide updates about the project and keep raising awareness and funds to help in the fight against the global housing crisis

Along the way, my why has not just strengthened but it also has multiplied, as I have found my place -a new why- in the XRP Community: Highlighting the awesome work of the developers building on the XRPL while learning tons about this awesome tech. If I hadn't started XRPLORE, I doubt that I would have deep dived into the XRPL projects the way I did and interacted with so many brilliant people.

What's Next?

I believe in the concept of web monetization, I really do. And I want to contribute as much as possible to spread the word in my network, hoping to make the blogging bug itch in others.

As to my blogging efforts, while I may take these down a notch further and focus on what really resonates in my audience (for this I'm asking for a bit of your help in the premium section of this post 😬) maybe writing less often, I still plan to continue pushing boundaries (hint: and adding a bit of Cinnamon).

Oh and by the way, there is a new bug itching: The “come up with my own website” bug. Seeing awesome work from fellow creators is really inspiring me to explore this avenue so there may be some news soon around that, if time allows.

In the meantime: Relax. Fasten your seatbelt. Enjoy the journey.

Header photo by [Mitchell](https://unsplash.com/@mtchllyng?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on Unsplash

Dear Coil Members, I am having a giveaway, so please scroll down a bit further if you would like to participate!

https://media.giphy.com/media/5noddpPJQxDNDaPWaP/giphy.gif

My birthday gift (see tweet below about it) has arrived!

https://twitter.com/rramentoll/status/1256832147320705025?s=20

The XRP Fund special edition of the Crypto Card Wallet is now in my pocket and in full use since a few days. I must say I am extremely happy with it (as I explain in more detail in my review video, exclusive for Coil and Cinnamon members) and I would like to share with the XRP Community the joy of unboxing such awesome swag!

https://media.giphy.com/media/l3q2Z6S6n38zjPswo/giphy.gif

GSG & One More Home Stickers!

First things first though! I'd like to give a shout-out to Salvo Leone founder of Crypto-Stickers.com for also having thrown in the envelope quite a few sets of One More Home and GoodXRP stickers. These look amazing and will go right to my laptop, backpack, tablet and maybe even in some locations around the city 😬.

Salvo, through crypto-stickers.com is a dear friend and supporter of the Good Souls Group (GSG) charities. Here is a list of products out of which part of the proceeds are donated to the nine GSG member charities (There is some really cool swag in there, including XUMM merch after the folks over XRPL Labs kindly decided to donate part of their proceeds as well, which I really recommend you to check out):

https://www.crypto-stickers.com/product-category/gsg/

The Unboxing

Now let's get to the unboxing of the wallet, which arrived in perfect condition.

The moment of truth! The unboxing (or unbagging) of the wallet.

The look and feel of this wallet is simply awesome. A picture is worth a thousand words.

The XRP Community Fund logo sewed in white, contrasting nicely with the dark grey of the wallet.

The metallic RFID safe compartment on the lower side, with a mechanism for easy access to your stored cards.

Here is how the cards fit in the RFID safe compartment. Once the little knob is pulled downwards, cards slide upwards staggered for easy access.

Another close-up to give an idea of the look-and-feel of the wallet.

The Wrap-up

I hope you have enjoyed the photos. I want to point out that this was my first purchase ever where I paid with crypto and more specifically with XRP and the process was seamless.

I am glad that this first purchase will not only validate the use case of cryptocurrencies for payments, but also support crypto development as Crypto Stickers has shared $5 (22 XRP) of this sale with the XRP Community Fund:

Link to tweet

With this, I would like to invite the XRP Community to support this kind of initiatives as just like it is a good idea to support our local communities by shopping local, we can get involved in our global one and #shopxrp.

All photos by me.

Exclusively for Coil Members, I have prepared a short review video in Cinnamon on which I go over what I have found out about using the wallet so far. Check it out! 👀⬇️

https://www.cinnamon.video/watch?v=318407618248836964

Hello folks! Today is Wordless Wednesday. But it doesn't have to be! I am happy to share with Coil Members the story behind these photos.

If I had to guess, I'd say I'm at least a mild case of OCD. Since I was a kid, I needed to avoid stepping on cracks while walking in the street just like Melvin Udall in As Good As It Gets. As an adult I whenever I fly and a meal is served during the flight, just after I finish eating I always feel this urge to put the cutlery, plastic wraps, plastic containers for salad, dessert, etc. inside the biggest container in the tray, so that when the flight attendant picks up the food tray, it looks as compact as possible. I could go on but I think you get the picture...

As for my blogging journey goes, I thought I was compulsion-free until I recently discovered how annoyed I got when a post of mine ended up with 9 upvotes. I am absolutely fine with getting 6, 7, 8 UVs but 9? Come on!

https://media.giphy.com/media/lkimlxty9s53ZfrXi/giphy.gif

I navigated through high-school just making the bare minimum. I was never a high grade student so an urge for scoring 10s can't be the reason. Maybe it has to do with having the double digits just one vote away?, who knows.

“To calm your OCD, did you share your post on Twitter to shoot for that 10th Upvote?“, You may ask.

Sure! I tweeted it out as posting your content in your social networks is a great way to make your work more visible!. Here's a screenshot of the tweet about that post:

aaaaand...the result was still...

https://media.giphy.com/media/MwOuiiTfWfWgM/giphy.gif

“OK, but you belong to these blogger groups, don't you? How about just asking for a quick upvote there?“, You may ask.

You would think that this is something these groups do but that's not the case. Although we do share each other's work, it's never on a “here, upvote me to the moon” basis because CTAs are not cool (Don't forget the best practices!!). One of the groups I hang out with has almost 30 members, so if we did this, I would've easily passed the 10 upvote mark and all of my posts would be around a similar count.

From my experience, these groups are great platforms where creators come together to learn from each other and to encourage each other, having lots of fun in-between. The ultimate reward for us as content creators is that someone else takes the time to read or watch your content and give you feedback. Having such forums are good not only for the creators as individuals but the platform as a whole as we all grow together.

“Fair enough. But then, what's the point of sharing this story?”, You may ask.

Well this is not reverse psychology to have someone give me that 10th upvote that would calm my compulsion (or is it 🤔? Nope just kidding 😁, although it would have been a good idea).

The point I am trying to make with this story is that despite I couldn't make it to the 10th upvote, I am really happy I could really see there is coherence between the quality of the content and the recognition it is getting, as this fosters organic growth in the platform. I know I didn't deserve that one upvote because I know exactly what went wrong with my post.

The post was a throwback to the 2017 bull run of XRP, where as you know, the crypto market went meteoric. After giving it some thought, I realized that the reason for not being able to score my 10th upvote had to do more with poor timing than content quality (I posted this on March 26th, just two weeks after Black Thursday. I mean who wants to read about bull runs when the crypto market has just experienced its worst crash in years? Hello!!). Lesson learned: Poor timing can be as damaging as poor content.

The title of this post suggests that I'd go a long way for that one upvote, and within what I consider is fair game, I did because I'd definitely go a longer way to contribute so that Coil continues to have this organic growth promoted by this vibrant, fantastic community that I am thrilled to be part of.

p.s. Please don't be the gal or guy that spoils the story by giving me the upvote now!

https://media.giphy.com/media/7zJZgRRVrKfzo71lnR/giphy.gif

Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash