Hello everyone. It's a new week and month of engagement on the steemit. My first engagement for this month will be in the Steemit Crypto Academy. There are seven communities chosen for this month engagement. You can check the steemit blog for more updates on and this and how to participate. The contest theme of the Steemit Crypto Academy is "Favorite Blockchain Network". I am going to be writing on my favorite blockchain network, its history, why I chose it, earliest shortcoming (s) and how it was overcome, the changes I think will make it better. So, follow me closely.

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My Favorite Blockchain Network

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Firstly, let me tell you my favorite blockchain network, then after which, I will move to its history and some other important things you need to know about it. My favorite blockchain network is Steem Blockchain

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My Favorite Blockchain network, its History, and Why it's My Favorite.

Here, I'm going to be telling you the history of steem blockchain network and why I have chosen it as my favorite. Let's start with history.

Steem Blockchain Network and its History

Steem Blockchain is one of the recent blockchains created. The blockchain was created by two people named Ned Scott and Daniel Larimer. Ned Scott was the CEO and Daniel Larimer was the CTO of the platform. The blockchain was founded in January, 2016. The blockchain came into existence as a result of the thoughtfulness of these two people to put the blockchain technologies into action so as to solve practical problems.

Prior to the creation of steem blockchain, Need and Daniel had explored different blockchains and blockchain projects to learn more about the principle of operations of different blockchains that were in existence then. According to the research, it was noticed that these people looked extensively at the micro insurance on the blockchain but later discovered the idea of leveraging the cryptocurrency using a community. They believed using a community is most powerful thing to leverage around cryptocurrency.

Steem actually was birthed as result of the ideas these two people had for insurance and mutual aid. And the idea was that, individuals can use peer-to-peer to help one another when solving any problem. Then, the idea of steemit also came in. Steemit was the first project that was launched on Steem Blockchain. Thus, this gave rise to larger vision and new development. Steemit is a platform where people get rewarded for posting quality contents and voting in a community. The people who write contents are the authors and the receive author's reward while those that vote on the content are curators and receive curators' reward.

Steemit launched the alpha testing in April of the same year, 2016. And many people adopted. It was stated that about 160 people were the early adopters of the project. One of the things that makes this steemit, social media blockchain platform, unusual is that, everything done on this platform is recorded on the steem blockchain. Thus management of the things with distributed system is achieved. And unlike other social media platforms where there's central authority controlling the activities of the platform, steemit doesn't have central authority since it's a blockchain based platform.

Steemit has been in existence since then. It has been growing and developing as many people keep adopting the project and joining it day in and out. The platform provides many values. It gives curation to news, posts created by the participants and commentaries. You can also get answers to questions or problems you may have as there have been many topics written on in the community or ecosystem. Users are rewarded with cryptocurrencies, steem, steem dollar, steem power. I will talk more about this later.

In February, year 2020, the community, steemit platform was taken over by Tron foundation. There was a lot of argument between the users of the platform then because many believed that taking over of this platform may result to centralization. So, there wasn't agreement between the users and it lead to hard fork. Meaning there was separation and steemit was hard fork to Hive platform. Hive platform is just like steemit because it's hard fork of steemit.

Steem has many block explorers. Some of these block explorer are listed below.

• Steemcan [steemscan.com](https://steemscan.com
• Stemyy Stemyy.com
• Steem Block Explorer SteemBlockExplorer.com
  Etc.

Block explore is a place where you get the detailed information about the block, supply, latest transaction, address etc of the steem.

Steem blockchain has many projects built on it. Apart from steemit platform which is a very popular and first application that was built on it, there are other projects such as Dlive, Dtube etc. Other decentralized applications have been accommodated con steem blockchain. Steem Blockchain uses delegated proof of stake (DPoS) consensus protocol and can process 10, 000 transaction with in a second.

Steemit platform has about three cryptocurrencies and an integration of another cryptocurrency, making it four. The reward of the author comes with steem backed dollar (SBD) , Steem power (SP) and TRX. Steem backed dollar SBD is pecked to ratio of 1:1 . It can be converted to steem, the native cryptocurrency of the steem blockchain. Steem power gives more influence on the platform, because the more the steem power, the more the influence you have on the platform. Although, SP can be converted to steem by powering it down but it's not advisable. And of course, you can also power up your steem to increase your SP.

As at the time of writing this post, steem is ranked #284 and it's currently trading at $0.4063.
It has a market capitalization of $160, 453, 702;
Volume of $54, 610, 697;
Circulating supply of 394, 951, 699;
Total supply of 409, 190, 981.
The screenshot below shows these details according to Coinmarketcap.

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_{Screenshot from Coinmarketcap | SOURCE}

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Steem price has actually experienced a very high peak before. According to Coinmarketcap, the all time high (ATH) of steem was in the year 2018 where it reached a peak of $8.57 and all time low (ATL) of steem is $0.06919 which was in the year 2017. See the screenshot below.

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_{Screenshot from Coinmarketcap | SOURCE}

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Steem be can traded on many exchanges. Some of these exchanges are listed below

• Binance
• Huobi Global
• Gate.io
• Bithumb
  Etc

According to Coinmarketcap, some of these Exchanges are shown in the screenshot below.

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_{Screenshot from Coinmarketcap | SOURCE}

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Why it's My Favorite

Although I have heard about cryptocurrencies and even traded it but my journey of blockchain cryptocurrencies started properly when I joined steemit platform in May, year 2021. Prior to this time, I had no or little knowledge about blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Perhaps the most popular blockchains and cryptocurrencies I knew before the time are bitcoin and Ethereum cryptocurrency and their blockchain. Even when I knew them, I didn't really have basic knowledge of when they came into existence and even how and their founder.

The first reason why steem blockchain is my favorite is that, I was exposed to the knowledge of cryptocurrencies and blockchain by joining the Steemit platform. Perhaps I could have chosen a different blockchain if there were other blockchains which have platforms like steemit where we can actually learn about blockchains and cryptocurrencies. But I don't think there's. Even hive, I don't think there's anything like exposing their new members or users to Achievement posts where they will first learn about different tools that can be used on the blockchain.

When I joined the steemit platform, I was guided on how to use different tools on the platform. I was taught markdown, content etiquette and many other things which has greatly helped me today. Also, crypto academy community has been one of the main community where I learned about different blockchains and cryptocurrencies, and trading. I would not have learned and known about these if I have not joined steemit.

In addition, my joining of the steemit platform has really been a blessing to me and my family. The reward I get from publishing quality contents has helped me financially. It has been one of the major source of income to me since I joined the platform, and I'm really grateful for that.

Moreso, steem has tools that are very helpful to check the transaction, address, blocks and some other useful information you can think of. Not only is it available, but it's also very simple to use. For example, Steemcan is one of the best tools or block explorer which I very very simple to use. It shows detailed information of what you want or need to look at. See the screenshot below.

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_{Screenshot from Steemcan | SOURCE}

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In the screenshot above, you can see different information shows on the homepage of the Steemcan. You can actually get what you want by a click.

Apart from that, another interesting thing about steemit is that, there's integration of TRX into the ecosystem. This makes the users to also earn TRAX as they receive their author and curation's reward.

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The network earliest shortcomings and how the network's team took care of the problem?

One of the earliest problems of the blockchain was when an announcement that Tron foundation was taken over the platform. There was a lot or argument then because people who has invested didn't want to let the platform turn into centralization. Many people believed that it might turn to being controlled by a central authority. As result of that, there's was dispute and that led to hardfork. So, the hardfork of steem is hive. There was no way to take care of this dispute than to allow the steem to undergo hard fork.

Plagiarism is also one of the shortcomings which the ecosystem has been dealing with. The platform aims at giving out quality contents to the people in the world out there and if this will be achieved, then the authors who post or publish contents must produce quality contents, contents free from plagiarism. This will makes the platform to command more respect and increase the growth. The Ecosystem has been dealing with plagiarism through different communities and they also have people or users whose their work is majorly on dealing with people who plagiarize. I think people are complying already as there has been reduction in the number of plagiarized contents.

Another shortcomings is self voting. Sometimes users curate the content themselves and also abuse of power. But there have been many sensitization on that and people or users are already yielding to that.

Some months ago, there was instability in the ecosystem and it was seen that the only way to increase the growth and the development of the steemit platform is by introducing an initiative which will make people invest in their steem power (SP). So the initiative was actually introduced. The name of the initiative is #club5050, club75 and club100. Club5050 means that users will invest 50% of the SBD or steem earned over a period of a month back to the system by powering it up, Club75 means that users will invest 75% of their earned steem over a period of 2 months in their SP by powering it up and club100 means users will invest their earned steem over a period of 3 months in their SP by powering it up.

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What changes do you think would make the network better?

There are some few things I will suggest which I think would make the network better and increase the growth of the ecosystem.

Promotion: I think promotion should be given more to the system so as to make people adopt the blockchain. Promoters could be higher than promote the event them across every social media. This will make it more reach people.

Partnership with more Exchanges. To increase the growth of the blockchain, I think there's a need to partner with more Exchanges. For example, steem has not been listed on Kucoin exchange. Listing steem on the exchanges where it hasn't been listed will enable more people to know the token.

Recruiting more users to steemit platform. Another important thing that may lead to growth is to recruit more people to join the Steemit platform. And it's important to look for a way to keep these new users. For example, new users who are writing achievement posts should be curated well. Although the curators are trying but if they increase the vote they give to these new people, they may be motivated to keep pushing.

Steemit platform should be made more decentralized. I think if the platform is strengthened more towards decentralization, it will be better. The network will grow more and more, and since it's a blockchain based platform.

The blockchain should allow more DApps. I think If the network can allow more DApps to be built on it, the network will be better and grow more.

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A Project that is built on your favorite Blockchain.

Here, I'm going to be talking briefly on a project that's built on Steem Blockchain. There are many projects and decentralized applications (DApps) built on Steem blockchain. The first of the the project that was built which is the most largest one is steemit. Other projects and DApps include, Dlike, Dlive, eSteem Surfer, Smartsteem, Steemworld, Steem Apps, Partiko, AnonSteem etc. I am going to be talking about eSteem

eSteem

eSteem is one of the oldest project built on Steem Blockchain. The project was built by @good-karma in the year 2016. It's a surfer application available in mobile and desktop. It was created in the Month of August , year 2016. The application is an alternative for steemit which users can use instead of using steemit web. Since its creation, many people have adopted using the application because it's easy to use and make every activity interesting. Before you can use the App, you need to have an account with steemit.

There are three version of eSteem:

• Desktop version
• IOS version
• Android version

Users can use any of these versions depending on what they have. They don't need to open their browser before they engage in steemit. All they need do it to open their App and perform any activity they want to.

The application has some wonderful features such as pin security, profile, bookmark, gallery, favorites, drafts, feed, login as, logout, etc.

The features are useful in the DApp. Pin security is useful to safeguard your account by setting the pin you will be using to log in into the application. You can also set up your profile and edit it using profile feature. You can bookmark any content or post that's important to you. You can also set your favorite feature by clicking on it and set it up. Draft features show the post you are writing before you close the app.

In essence, eSteem is just an application which can be used to make engagement in steemit instead of using steemit website. The application can be downloaded and installed, and once the pin is set, you can use it.

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Conclusion

In this post, I have been able to talk about my favorite blockchain, steem blockchain, its history and some statistics. I also talked about some of the things that could be done to increase the growth of the network and finally mentioned some of the projects and DApps built it and talked about one extensively.

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Reference Article 1 Source

Reference Article 2 Source

Reference Article 3 Source