Steem Basic Income
Steem Basic Income is a social experiment to bring a basic income to as many Steemians as possible. Members join by sponsoring others into the program. Steem Basic Income is delivered through providing regular upvotes to member content.
Welcome to @steembasicincome's sixth member interview!
To provide more interaction within Steem Basic Income (SBI), we are continuing our interviews with prominent members of SBI!
We hope to bring a greater sense of community, get to know our members, and gain a better understanding of why Steemians are choosing to be a part of SBI.
@steembasicincome member spotlight: @reinaldoverdu
In a new series of interviews, I would like to focus on some specific SBI members and tell their story. For many of us here, SBI is just a subscription to receive a nice little upvote, a little extra on our posts. We use it as a way to encourage engagement (through contests) and build a nice steady flow of (hopefully) growing votes. There are members, however, for whom SBI is so much more. It is food on the table, and a hugely important source of income they rely on to get by. My hope is to highlight the stories of some of these members and show the power of SBI to change and improve people’s lives.
By now we probably all know the basics of what has been happening in Venezuela. What I want to focus on is the impact on people’s lives. @reinaldoverdu is a Venezuelan Steemian that many of us may know through SBI. He has been generous with his time. As I have put together this interview, I have made minor grammar, spelling and typo edits to his answers for readability. English is his second language, and he was communicating with me from his phone via discord. I have tried to keep my edits to a minimum.
@jk6276: My first question is, how did you first find Steem, and what attracted you to it?
@reinaldoverdu: I find Steem through Steemit and it is because a Venezuelan friend @hendersonp talk to me about Steemit and invited me to join. This happened a year ago, exactly on Feb 2. I am next to celebrate my first year on Steemit and I am happy to share it with you.
I was attracted to Steemit because the possibility to earn some money writing; that’s what I love, I am a creator and a professional history teller for young and seniors.
@jk6276: And how have things turned out over this last year compared to your initial expectations?
@reinaldoverdu: Well many changes, basically the HF20 was the big one, and the way people use bots and learn to make/use engagement with others. Before the fork, I notice people had less empathy to participate, but now that has improved greatly.
Users learn that they gain more interacting with others than just using bid bots. But, of course, that’s just my opinion.
@jk6276: I agree, there is so much we can learn from each other. You mentioned that you love teaching about history, what would you like to share with us?
@reinaldoverdu: I love teaching about my particular history of life, that is a very dramatic and tough one. I will tell you that I am just 1 boy, I don’t have brothers, sisters or actually any family or parents. When I have my parents alive, I have to take care of them, without having work, income or a source to pay for food or bills. At first instance my Mom becomes sick with Dementia and I have to take care of her alone (bathing, food, etc) putting on 2nd instance my social life and others for that. 3 or 4 years later, after mom dies, then my Dad get sick with Dementia too then I have to pass it alone. I think this is the most important part of my history.
I pass 8 years living a hell taking care of my parents in a country without medicines, without having work or an income, before I meet Steemit.
@jk6276: wow, that must have been some challenging times. Also, the economic situation in your country would have made it even harder. So STEEM for you is literally your main income?
@reinaldoverdu: Yes, STEEM and SBI are my main source of income and I live actually from that.
@jk6276: has the drop in STEEM price hurt, or has your growth in SBI balanced out the lower prices?
@reinaldoverdu: That’s an interesting question. Because I live in Venezuela, prices of STEEM on exchanges to my local currency is very low, and it affect us very hard, meaning that we get less food for the STEEM, due to hyperinflation and other financial phenomena that only seem to be in Venezuela.
So, in return we can buy less food with more STEEM.
On the other side, I can grow my SP with SBI, and this is a great improve/help for me.
@jk6276: So, could you share with us the actual process of converting your STEEM earnings into your local currency? Do you use the Venezuelan, currency or is USD accepted? How much do you have to live on weekly?
@reinaldoverdu: Sure, I use any of my local exchanges from STEEM/SBD to my local currency (@orinoco, @anytrades, @steem-pays, @bittrex, @binance, etc), I just use Venezuelan currency. Actually, I am suffering and I am across the worst time of my life, living only with 8 to 10 STEEM weekly, and the food for just 1 day is worth actually 7 STEEM. I made miracles, I must mention that as I just receive near 4$ of SBI (and I can’t live with that amount) I have to be obligated to power down and hurt my account to live. Take in consideration I am a minnow and I have just 123 SP at this point.
So making Power Down hurts my growth on Steemit very much,
But I am obligated to do this. Many times, I pray for help.
@jk6276: Having food is more important than having Steem Power, I think. Is there any sign of improvement in your countries plight?
@reinaldoverdu: Country now has passing the most critical diplomatic situation, at the moment I am answering this question we are expecting a USA military intervention or maybe a civil war. We don’t know, the future is insecure for us.
@jk6276: You have accumulated over 1200 SBI units, many of them from sponsors, is there anyone in particular that you would like to mention?
@reinaldoverdu: I win some contests and receive sponsorship from a person that sometime said to me that he wants to remain anonymous, so in respect to that decision (unless he authorizes me) I prefer to keep his name/user anonymous. But I work hard through 8 months before I receive the big amount of units. And I am very grateful to that person, without their help, I will be death for sure.
@jk6276: SBI is obviously very important in your life, are you happy with the program overall? Do you have any thought on its future?
@reinaldoverdu: Indeed, I am very happy with the program, it literally saves my life. I will be death if I don’t have it believe me. I expect that this program will grow bigger and be a heavy influencer on Steemit to help many others around the world. There are so many people in need around that requires help (including me).
@jk6276: Aside from SBI, are there other ways you are trying to boost your STEEM income?
@reinaldoverdu: When I used to have internet, I use to participate on any SBI contest I see, but now just only having internet on my phone is very hard to me, but I try to do my best, and I invite you to participate, is fun and easy. I particularly love the haiku contests, and I suggest you join.
@jk6276: How do you feel about the current state of STEEM? Not so much the price, but the way things are heading, changes going on?
@reinaldoverdu: I am optimist and I say that things going better for us soon, maybe on March when SMT’s are launched.
@jk6276: Is there anything else you would like to add in conclusion?
@reinaldoverdu: Keep engaging with people, interact with community, talk, make friends, propose and share ideas and try to use discord. If you do this, I am sure you will have lots of experiences to share and new friends. I wish you have a good life, keep going on.
Sigan trabajando duro y tendran un buen futuro. Paz y amor.
Peace and love!
Writer Bio, @jk6276
I have been on STEEM around 9 months and have enjoyed exploring many different facets and opportunities. One constant since I found the program has been SBI. I think it is a project with enormous potential to improve people’s lives. I have been motivated to participate in various fundraising on STEEM and am now trying my hand as a writer for SBI focusing on interviews with members for whom SBI is most important. I hope you have enjoyed this post and would encourage anyone with a spare sponsorship to consider sponsoring @reinaldoverdu. I would like to note that writers for SBI receive a small benefit (SBI sponsorship, and some SBD if the work is good). In this instance I have requested that @reinaldoverdu receive my full payment… He needs it more than I and was very generous with sharing his life with us.
<Editor note: The benefit our writers receive is a blend of regular units, bonus units, and liquid SBD. We have increased all three above our normal interview rates to support @jk6276's desire to help @reinaldoverdu. If you know other members that are using SBI to help them through precarious circumstances, please let us know. We would like to highlight several more for this series.>
Enrollment
If you want to get involved, or to increase the share of basic income that you receive, enrollment is pretty straightforward:
Just send 1 STEEM to @steembasicincome. Include the name of a Steemian to sponsor in the transaction memo (preceded by @). You and the person you sponsor will each receive 1 unit in the program. You can sponsor any active Steemian, it does not have to be a current member.
If you're unclear, please check out our full transaction memo guidelines and then let us know if you have any questions.
@steembasicincome/steem-basic-income-updated-transaction-memo-guidelines
The official currency for enrollment is STEEM. If we choose to accept SBD without refunding it, you do not receive extra value for it.
Enrollments are processed automatically every 144 minutes. Confirmation transactions are still manual and typically are sent within 2-3 days. Even if you have not received a welcome transaction, you can check your status using !sbi status.
SBI Writer's Group Needs Your Help
A few spots are available for interested writers to join the SBI writer's group.
You do not already have to be a member of Steem Basic Income to take up this opportunity, but a basic working knowledge of SBI would help.
Here are some examples of previous interviews created by members of the SBI writers group. As you can see from these examples, we let this lapse for a while, but we are ready to take it to the next level!
| Previous Interviews | 📖 |
|---|---|
| Interview with @andrewharland | Interview with @f3nix |
| Interview with @dynamicgreentk | Interview with @improv |
| Interview with @dosdudes | Interview with @holger80 |
Participating writers receive reward in additional SBI levels, along with a writing credit on articles and updates published on @steembasicincome account, to 5k+ followers. Bonuses in STEEM/SBD are available for quality work that requires minimal editing.
Full information about the program is available here. If you are interested, please direct message me (@josephsavage) on the Steem Basic Income discord server.
Questions?
Please read our FAQ Contest thread, which has a wealth of quality information. If you still have questions, ask in the comments section or join us in our discord channel.
