An Invitation to Join Steem Platform

Hello guys! Good day to all of you. For fellow Steemians that are reading my blog-post please don’t be surprised if I am talking about subjects that you already know, I am writing this blog-post as an invitation to fellow Filipina bloggers whom I wanted to invite into the Steem’s platform. Some of them are not familiar with the concept of blockchain and cryptocurrencies therefore please bear with me if you find what is written here trivial.

To my group mates at Filipina Bloggers let me do a quick introduction about myself and share with you the reason why I wanted to join the group. My name is Anidel but my friends online call me Ankarlie, it is a combination of my name and my boyfriend’s first name, Karl. I am a 20-years old Filipina based in Laguna and currently working as a blockchain and cryptocurrency enthusiast, trader, marketer, miner, investor, bounty hunter and blogger. I am also a Freelance writer for blockchain and crypto related news and projects. At times I also do online selling of computers and related stuff. I can say that I am doing pretty well for someone that is 100% earning from activities mentioned above.

I joined the group primarily to discover what my fellow Filipinas write about in their blogs. I would like to know the different platforms they use and what content they share. I plan to engage with fellow members about topics that interest me like cooking, travelling, politics, environment, technology, business, earning opportunities, online contests and the like. I love learning new things found online, take this knowledge and use them in the real world where I can get real value out of them or create real value for others. In short I am living a significant amount of my time online and as the technology evolve, become less expensive and become more efficient I find myself integrating almost every facet of my life into the virtual world.

All of this could not be possible without the internet and social media. Through these technologies we are able to share information, know-how and knowledge far and wide. I just love it when I can utilize the internet to find useful information, learn them and apply them. The internet is after all the information super-highway. Some say the internet have emancipated information, which it has, but this should only apply to real, authentic and truthful information. So much information is out there that it is hard for us to discern by ourselves which ones are real and which are fake.

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This underscores the need to have a social network where you can ask real people about their insights and point you to what they think are the real and authentic information. However, people have their frailties too. They too are subject to their own biases and agenda. It is really up to ourselves to discern what is real and authentic, which information we can TRUST.

Of course we can always go to sources that are generally seen as trustworthy by virtue of their brand name or of their general public perception. However due to its very nature of being centralized it can easily be coerced, compromised and manipulated. These sources that we trust have become sources of social engineering to steer public sentiment or even manipulate behavior. You need not go far to see them. It is all around us even in our beloved social media platform Facebook. This is so powerful that pundits believe it has the capacity to influence the outcome of elections even in sophisticated voters of the first-world.

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With that being said I would like to introduce to you an emerging technology that could help us established reliable, safe and trustworthy information called Blockchain Technology. I can perhaps write a whole thesis on what it is but I would not like to bore you with the technical details of this nascent technology. Just think of it as a new technology that enables us to TRUST WITHOUT HAVING TO TRUST.

This technology is so effective that it is essentially disrupting the whole financial industry where TRUST is the name of the game. In fact the first application of this technology was released at the height of the Banking system turmoil of 2008-09 in the form of a cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. The new asset class is seen by many as a soon-to-be the digital equivalent of Gold, the ultimate store of value. Others have speculated that it will be the universal currency of the world. A currency that cannot be controlled by any single sovereign state thus cannot not be weaponize to subjugate or punish other countries.

Interestingly more than 30 years ago (1988), the British magazine The Economist featured an article about a world currency. Did the article foretell the coming of Blockchain-powered cryptocurrencies? I will just leave that to your imagination at the time of this writing I have not found the link to the scans of the original article since its article pre-dates the public internet.

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Aside from Finance blockchain technology is also being leveraged by multinational companies and governments for identity verification, document authentication and monitoring supply chain activities for food, drug and luxury items.

If governments and multi-billion companies trust a technology that they essentially cannot control or manipulate and where there are trillions of money at stake perhaps we can also put our TRUST in this technology.

What is blockchain technology?

It is essentially a network of trust where participants can trust each other without trusting counter-parties. To give you a better grasp of what it is I found this interesting video explaining what blockchain is and what it has to offer. I suggest that you watch the video in its whole entirety to get a better understanding of this new and exciting technology.

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What makes blockchain awesome?

Essentially there are three important characteristics that make this technology so effective and powerful:

First it is decentralized. There is no single point of failure that can be compromised where a hacker or any belligerent actor can exploit. Decentralization ensures that there is a single version of the TRUTH by making exact copies of the TRUTH and sending these copies to all independent participants. There is no centralized authority that has its own agenda or who can unilaterally create their own version of the truth or revises historical truth in the past. Centralized authority is also subject to subjugation and coercion by more powerful entities that may use them to propagate its own truth. This is perhaps the most important characteristic of this emerging technology.

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To give you a better insight why this is important let me give you concrete examples why this attribute is important. Take for example your bank account. Banks can easily freeze your account unilaterally if you are suspected of engaging in illegal activities. Facebook and Google on the other hand can sell your data to marketers and governments for profiling or data mining without you knowing. They can also suspend accounts without permission from its users.

Second, it is transparent. Every participant knows the source, destination and content of all transaction by using a blockchain explorer. This means that no single participant will be able to send, accept and alter data within a blockchain without being known by the whole participating body. Every participant can check the source and the destination and compare content.

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The transparency of the blockchain forces participants in the platform to always act in their best behavior. It is a widely known fact that sometimes people do not act their best when they know no one will be able to discover their deeds but this is not obviously the case in blockchain.

Third, it is immutable. Once you have written your article, data or whatever information on the blockchain it will forever be there and cannot be deleted. Revisions can be made but revisions on the previous data will also be recorded making the original information visible to others.

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Immutability ensures that there is always one version of the truth and the process to reach this truth is what we call on the blockchain world, consensus protocol, once consensus is reached everyone will have to agree that this version of truth is the Only Truth.

Uses of Blockchain Technology (Steemit)

We have seen the first application of this nascent technology in the financial markets around the world but this is not the only sector this technology can be applied. Anything that involves truth it can be applied. These includes: identity, credentials, login, certificates, documents, money, brand, authenticty, news and many more. One of the best applications that I have encountered that uses blockchain is Steemit.

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Steemit is a blogging platform that leverages the power STEEM blockchain technology. It is the first application that is built on top of STEEM blockchain and the first blockchain powered social media platform. As its stands it is currently the most well known and popular blogging platform in the whole blockchain ecosystem. It is also the main content management interface for most of the applications that is built on top of the Steem blockchain.

It is of my own opinion that Steemit is one of the best way to get started with blockchain and learning about the different applications of blockchain. There are many great communities and content creators in the Steemit platform that are always willing to share their time, knowledge and know-how about Steemit, Steem , blockchain and cryptocurrencies. This is on top of the many articles, tutorials, reviews and news shared daily in the platform.

The most exciting features of SteemIt is the ability to receive rewards for sharing quality and useful content. You can also receive rewards “curating” other user’s article. You can also get rewards by leaving relevant and insightful comments on blog-posts and articles. The reward you get depends on the number of “upvotes” (likes) you get from the Steemit community multiplied by the amount of influence power (Steem Power) they have. The reward system of Steemit is a bit more complicated than what I have stated above. To know more about the reward system I would suggest you to search steemit I am sure there are a lot of articles there that explains it in detail.

What is the value proposition of Steem?

This is a topic that is best discussed on a separate article. I have written of the value proposition of Steem you can read it below.

https://steemit.com/steemit/@ankarlie/steem-has-so-much-explosive-potential-value-wise

Having a Steem Account also opens you to a whole new world of incentivized Steem blockchain-powered social media networks. Here are some of the accounts that I know and personally have used in the past.

Diffrent Steem dApps (Decentralized Applications)

You might be surprised but Steem blockchain has many blogging sites or what we call in the steem community condensers (interfaces). We have Steemit which is the default blogging platform. We also have busy and Ulog The former provides an alternative to the default steemit user interface and provides more features than the standard Steemit website. Ulog is very similar to busy with some enhancement that focused on personal blogs. It must be noted that even if you use the other steem websites content will also be written in Steemit default blogging site.

Some users might want to interact with Steem using their mobile device. To do this they have to use the following dApps: partiko and esteem. Using the said application has some merits as they give support to their

Steem also have several equivalents of other popular websites. Dtube is the Youtube equivalent built on top of the Steem blockchain. Steemians can receive Steem currency rewards when they get upvotes from viewers. The same can be said when using Dsound a music sharing platform from Steem. There is even a Instagram equivalent built on Steem called Steepshot .

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If you are into reviewing products and services Steemhunt would probably interest you. Aside from the possibility of earning Steem rewards you can also earn Hunt a utility token for SteemHunt buy using the platform. If you are a developer or an IT person you might want to checkout Utopian an open source economy.

Do you want to do some freelance work you can also check out Steemgigs where in you can find some work or task that might suite you. You can liken it to Fiverr but his time is powered by the Blockchain. There is also an investment platform within the Steem Ecosystem called SmartSteem if configured properly can be a very lucrative passive income.

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For those who like games you can explore these Steem-enhanced games. Magic Dice is a dice game that lets you play with Steem that you have your wallet. Bets are made on-chain which means once you win you have your Steem reward immediately deposited to your wallet real-time (in the Steem blockchain no one except you have access to your wallet not even developers of Steem). Aside from wining Steem you also get rewarded with Magic Tokens. It represents a stake on the earnings of the site. When you have enough of these you can earn daily rewards in Steem or SBD delivered to your wallet every 24 hours. If you are not into betting perhaps trading game card might suit you. We have SteemMonster. You can buy and sell unique card and battle to win more cards. Lastly there is Free to play strategy game called also Drugwars. Both games incentivize players by rewarding them with Steem.

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Steem Account Creation

Everyone can create an account at Steem. You can do this for FREE by registering through this link: http://bit.ly/SteemInvite However you might wait a couple of days before you receive the link from your email to create one.

If you want to create one instantly it may cost a little money. Buy an account here: http://bit.ly/SteemPaidAccount

I hope some of you at Filipina bloggers would consider joining us in Steem. That is all for now friends I hope you found my blog-post interesting and informative. If you have any question about my blog-post do not hesitate to ask them in the comment section below.

You can also contact me in my other social media accounts:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnkarlieSantos
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100012449075439
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anidel-silvano-48391513b/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ankarliesantos/