Trade STEEM - STEEM Markets, Exchanges, Broker
Steem is a crypto currency that was launched in 2016 and is part of the blogging platform Steemit. The goal of the newly created payment method is clearly defined: A new financing option for good content is to be created.
Because so far there has been a certain unfairness in this area. If you upload great photos to Facebook, for example, you may receive a lot of likes for them - but the money from the advertising partners remains with the social network. With Steemit this should be different.
Steem tokens are distributed there, both to the creators of high-quality content and to the people who give ratings. As simple as the underlying idea may be, the implementation involves some complicated aspects.
The content is stored in the blockchain
The project was founded by Ned Scott and Dan Larimer. The latter in particular is no stranger to the scene: He is the founder of BitShares and head of technology at EOS. In the meantime Larimer is no longer active for Steem. Steemit Inc. is responsible for financing the platform and disseminating the cryptographic currency.
A special feature is the fact that the blockchain is used in two ways. On the one hand to store the transactions with the Steem Token. On the other hand, it is also used for decentralized storage of the content posted on the platform. This approach should help to prevent state censorship.
In this respect, the Steemit project also differs from the Chinese YOYOW token, which also wants to establish a social network with crypto currency. On Steemit itself pictures and texts can be uploaded. Videos, on the other hand, have to be uploaded elsewhere and can then be inserted via a link.
For the users, publishing content should also be financially rewarding: For every positive rating, they receive units of the Steem Crypto currency. The following applies: the higher the reputation of the rating user, the greater the reward. The formula is: 75 percent is given to the author and 25 percent to the evaluators.
The Steem Token and Other Cryptographic Currencies
Strictly speaking, there are even three crypto currencies within the Steemite network:
1. The classic payment unit is called Steem. This can be used freely and is also traded on numerous stock exchanges.
2. a second unit is called STEEM Power. Roughly speaking, the more Steem Power an account has, the more influential its valuation will be. In principle, Steem Power and Steem are also convertible - but sometimes only with strong restrictions.
3. there are also the so-called Steem Dollar (SBD). These are linked to the value of the dollar and earn interest using the proof-of-stake method.
Originally, Steem was supposed to have an annual inflation rate of one hundred percent. In the meantime, however, this has been significantly reduced. At present, the figure is 9.5 percent - and is decreasing by half a percentage point annually.
"Delegated proof-of-stake" instead of mining
An important question with crypto currencies based on a blockchain is always how new blocks can be added and transactions confirmed. With Bitcoin, this is done by so-called mining. Roughly speaking, users with a lot of computing power are preferred. Steemit therefore takes a slightly different approach:
the delegated proof-of-stake process. To put it simply, particularly trustworthy users are selected who can then generate new blocks. The procedure has two advantages: Firstly, the blocks are created extremely quickly - with Steem this takes only three minutes. In addition, it is one of the few crypto currencies without transaction fees.