I'm soooooooooo glad you wrote this! HOOOOORRRRRAAAAAYYYY.
I have too many favorite parts of your story and I identified with a lot of it:
"I also learned that my capitalist mindset was too short-sighted. I began to see how building a community around the selfish motives of earning income by charging fees on transactions limited adoption."

I think it's great, and it's exactly what I've been thinking about since 2011, banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how I can solve some really huge issues, having the ideas, but not the capital to make my dreams of helping people understand how to get free from their prisons. This is so great. Your vision is pure, and it's a such rare gem. You'll soon be rewarded in ways you didn't dream were possible......
It is truly like this: even if for some odd reason the experiment fails, your vision for humanity via Steemit has already made a lot of us regain hope that had been either lying dormant or had been squished out of us. You having hope and sharing your intelligence has created a dreamworld for those who haven't let go of the dream. Holy shit. Your story is powerful.