Steem

Steem is a social blockchain and cryptocurrency meant to create and power incentivized online communities and provide immediate monetization opportunities for content creators.

What is Steem?

Launched by Ned Scott and Daniel Larimer, the co-founder of BitShares and the lead developer of EOS, today Steem is one of the most actively used blockchains. It has more than a million users and over 400 apps made for Steem network.

Steem blockchain is designed for social media platforms. Most social media applications use voting systems that include likes, shares or upvotes to sort content. Steem integrates these elements into a unique decentralized platform that grants the ability to pay users in Steem for their activity on the network.

Steem’s whitepaper was published in March 2016. The ultimate goal of Steem is to become the non-censorable monetization layer of digital content which rewards users with cryptocurrency for using the platform. Many already functioning projects are built on Steem.

How Does Steem Work?

Steem and its apps serve a practical way to create content and get paid for it. So how does it all work?

Naturally, you need to register as a network member to start earning Steem. Upon registration, you’ll receive posting, active, owner and memo keys. The great thing about Steem ecosystem is that you can use the same login credentials and posting key to use all Steem applications. After your account is set, all you need to do is to create, submit and publish valuable posts on one of Steem platforms. Then, the community interacts with them, and if people find your input useful, they upvote it. In turn, your post gains more value with every new upvote, and you get paid in roughly seven days.

There are several points to keep in mind:

The more people engage with your content, the bigger the content exposure and likewise, your rewards will be.
By voting on their favorite posts, users create a hierarchy of content with the most popular posts entering trending or hot feeds.
Steemit is meritocratic, meaning that users who have more Steem Power (SP) cast more influential votes, resulting in more significant rewards.
Steem has three types of currency units circulating in its system: Steem (STEEM), Steem Dollars (SBD) and Steem Power (SP). Steem and Steem Dollars are tradeable, while Steem Power is not.

Steem (STEEM)

Steem is the underpinning currency of the network. All the other tokens derive their value from it. Also, it can be traded to other cryptocurrencies using exchanges or be used as a payment vehicle.

To benefit from Steem, users need to convert their Steem into Steem Power (SP) via the process known as “powering up.” Steem can also be converted to Steem Dollars.

Steem Power (SP)

Steem Power is the networks long-term investment currency. Turning Steem into Steem Power equals investing equity in the system. One Steem equates to one user vote. Users with most SP have the most voting influence, so an upvote from a user with lots of Steem Power grants more substantial rewards. Besides, most of the newly generated Steem is allocated to users who hold significant amounts of SP, creating an incentive to hoard it.

In case you want to “power down” by converting your SP back into Steem, the process will take you 13 weeks. Such a cooldown period is a precaution preventing people from suddenly (panic)selling all their Steem Power holdings and crashing the market.

Steem Dollars (SBD)

Steem Dollars represent the network’s short-term debt and are the default reward currency (along with SP). One SBD equals one US dollar. Steem whitepaper indicates that users who hold SBD lend community the value of one US dollar, thus fostering network’s growth. Also, they receive 10% annual interest on Steem Dollar they hold.

If the amount of SBD debt ever surpasses 10% of the Steem market cap, the blockchain will automatically adjust the amount of Steem generated through conversions to a maximum 10% of the market cap. That way the network never experiences a higher than 10% debt-to-ownership ratio.

A user holding Steem Dollars has several options:

1.Convert Steem Dollars to Steem. The process
typically takes 3.5 days.
2.Hold the Steem Dollars and earn 10% annual
interest.
3.Make a long-term investment by changing the
Steem Dollars into Steem Power.
4.Trade it on one of the exchanges.

Steem Projects

At the time, the most popular Steem dapps are:

Steemit- A social blogging platform inspired by Reddit and Medium, except running on blockchain and with real cryptocurrency rewards.
DTube- A decentralized alternative to YouTube.
eSteem- Mobile blogging app for Android, iOS, and desktop.
SteepShot - A decentralized alternative to Instagram.
DSound- A platform that resembles SoundCloud, designed for musicians to share their sounds and get paid in Steem.
Zappl- A decentralized micro-blogging platform and Twitter alternative.
Utopian.io- A platform for contributing and rewarding people who commit to open source projects.
DMania- A decentralized alternative to 9GAG.
Busy.org- A decentralized social network with a unique and feature-rich interface.
Steem Monsters- Digital collectible card trading game.
Actifit- A fitness tracker that rewards your activity with Steem.