What everyone should know about Steem | answers to all the questions you were too afraid to ask

   

1. Too you're too busy to read the whitepaper? 
2. Or you've been trying to get some attention for a few weeks now but you have no followers, upvotes or      comments? 
3. Or you just want to figure out the best way to make money here? 

If the answers to any of those questions are 'yes' then I wrote this one for you.       

#1: Steem was built to reward the people who make a social network valuable 

When you think about it, the biggest social networks in the world are worth billions of dollars but that value goes to the shareholders of those companies. The people who actually make those social networks valuable are the people who use that social network, and create content that's put on that social network, and like/upvote/curate this content, and read this content and leave their comments on this content. Steem was built to reward these people with money (read: crytpocurrency).   

#2 There are 3 currencies Steem, Steem Dollars and Steem Power

1. Steem
   Is a very volatile cryptocurrency and the one thats traded on Exchanges. You won't need to use this one inside Steem (the platform). Unless you're a speculator or day trader, you will probably only need to use this if you're converting another currency (bitcoin for instance) to Steem Dollars or Steem Power.
2. Steem Dollars
   These are only valuable in the Steem ecosystem. You can't directly convert them to fiat except by first converting it to STEEM first. However it has a stable value because it's pegged to the US dollar. Let's say for example, you want to convert your Steem Dollars to bitcoin; under the hood, Steem gives you enough STEEM to convert 
3. Steem Power
   When you create content, you're given half your rewards as Steem Power and the other half as Steam Dollars.
   You can cash out your Steem Power whenever you wish and that process of cashing out is called 'Powering Down'.
   When you 'Power Down' you get one STEEM for every Steem Power you have.
   'Powering Down' is a long term process. It takes 104 weeks but payouts are made every week.

Also,

• The STEEM money supply is doubled every year
  • 10% of this goes to paying interest on STEEM dollars.
  • The remaining 90% goes to paying an interest on Steem Power - Steem Power pays 9 times more interest than Steem Dollars.

#3 the more Steem you have, the more votes you get 

A one user one vote system, people can fake identities to make multiple votes. One the other hand, 'one Steem one vote' is better because it gives more influence to people who have contributed most to the system because they are more likely to act in a way that maximises to long term value of their STEEM. 

#4 Creating content is not the only way to earn money   

Other ways you can earn money are:  

• Curating (you may want to callt his voting). Voters get a reward that is proportional to the ultimate reward that is paid to the content creator.

#5: Stuff I haven't figured out yet

1. Which are the proper situations to use words Steem (in lower case) and STEEM (in upper case)?

If I left anything that's important and should be in this article, please share it in the comments section below.

And if you can explain anything here better than I did, please give an explanation in the comments section below as well.