Meet Steem's Top 30 Witnesses!

Will you join us in getting to know @Klye, @Aggroed, @Thecryptodrive, @Smooth, @Cervantes, @LukeStokes, @Abit, @Ihashfury, and @Fyrstikken a little better because each has empowered us to be together on Steemit at https://steemit.com/@jerrybanfield today and continues to support the growth of Steem every day as one of the top 30 witnesses? To thank each witness for service, would you please join us in making votes for witnesses at https://steemit.com/~witnesses because witness votes are the most important we make here on Steem?

Thank you to @Lexiconical for doing the research on each witness below in order to make this post possible which I made into a video along with this post! If you missed the earlier posts, meet the top 1 to 10 witnesses at https://steemit.com/witness/@jerrybanfield/meet-steem-s-top-10-witnesses and meet the top 11 to 20 witnesses at https://steemit.com/witness-category/@jerrybanfield/meet-steem-s-top-20-witnesses.

@Klye

Kyle has 4 witness projects: 3 are underway, but the one he considers “finished” is Steem.Global, the “first faucet” for the Steem cryptocurrency blockchain. “Faucets”, for the unaware, are (usually) web-based locations where you can receive a free bit of cryptocurrency to get you started.

@Aggroed

Aggroed is best known as the primary force behind the creation of the Minnow Support project which @Lexiconical joined on day #1. Aggroed continues to handle many of the high-end decisions at MSP, including the delegation of duties to the many community moderators and the overall direction of the community and its projects.

@Thecryptodrive

Thecryptodrive, or Ricardo Goncalves, boasts the first and longest-running Steemit Witness from the continent of Africa. Located in South Africa, Ricardo touches a wide number of projects related to the Steem ecosystem. Ricardo initially created the @steemdrive campaign, a fundraising project to get the Steemit logo on large outdoor media. The initial announcement post garnered an incredible $27,037 in rewards and quickly funded a billboard in Durban, South Africa. He is also the creator or @Steemsports, an attempt to disrupt the potentially $3 trillion industry of sports betting by using vote power for bets and payouts instead of fiat money.

@Smooth.witness (aka @Smooth)

Smooth has been an active and well-known member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. A core team member of Monero and lead developer of AEON (a “mobile friendly private digital currency”,) Smooth is an old hand from the BitcoinTalk forums. There he has relentlessly (and rationally) promoted Steem against numerous cynical voices for over a year in the thread entitled: "Steemit how can this thing be workable long-term?"

@Cervantes

Cervantes is the appropriately named ambassador for the Spanish-speaking Steemit community. Cervantes also runs a series of posts that help encourage Steemit meetups in Venezuela. His post rewards funnel back to meetup organizers to fund food, drinks, venue rentals, transportation, and any other costs associated with meetup organization.

@Lukestokes.mhth (aka @LukeStokes)

Lukestokes is a Nashville-based PHP programmer with a degree in Computer Science Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. Via his programming work he has handled over half a billion dollars of e-commerce transactions. Lukestokes is also the owner/operator of FoxyCart, an e-commerce service provider specializing in turn-key solutions for payment-handling. Lukestokes is an old-hand in the cryptosphere, having first purchased Bitcoin at $20 in 2013. He was both an active miner and forum poster at the Bitcointalk.org forums. He continues to blog frequently about cryptocurrencies, trading, and in particular, witness voting engagement.

@Abit

Abit is an experienced developer and node-operator for the Bitshares network. Based in Asia, the experience shows: Abit’s Bitshares witness node has one of the best long-term records for avoiding droppe