STEEM has one of the largest and close knit communities I'ev seen in my over half decade in the crypto ecosystem for sure. A great "entry point" for non-crypto folks to get handsd on with blockchain tech.

I started out with small 8GB virtual machines back in the day and slowly expanded my servers upwards to keep in front of the demands the STEEMd software has to run properly.

The blockchain we have here is unique, quirky and still very much a public beta test, but I see the potential for sure, wouldn't be dedicating my efforts towards it if I did not believe.

For a witness server I'd recommend a "go big or go home" attitude as the requirements for running the steemd client grows as the blockchain does.. I think you can get away with a 64GB RAM server with decent single thread performance.,.. and SSD drives are incredibly effective at speeing up the otherwise disastrously long sync/restart on the software.

I've got to get my desktop workstation back into my possession then will be trying to get the steem roller investment dice service going, will certainly need testers, you're in.