This is an excerpt from my presentation at the Steem meet-up in Owerri.

I was asked to make a presentation on the topic: Interconnection between steem cryptocurrency, Steemit and blockchain technology.

The first thing I did during the course of my presentation was to clearly define what the three entities mean and emphasize that Steem is different from Steemit. A lot of people still see them as the same.

The next thing I did was to explain the way they are interconnected by stating the reason why each entity needs the other.

Steemit

Why Steemit needs a Blockchain

Steemit needs a blockchain because:

• It needs to be decentralized

We really want to remove corruption from everything by having multiple sources of truth.
Dan Larimer.

• It needs to be censorship resistant
• It needs to be Immutable
• It needs to be Safe.

Why Steemit needs a Currency

• Steemit is not just a social network. It is also a political system and economic system. It there needs a currency. Steemit is more like a country or planet that is governed by a sort of representative democracy.

• By design the purpose of the steem blockchain is to be a

tool for building perpetually growing communities, which encourage their members to add value to the community through the built-in rewards structure.

The reward structure is this economic model that enables the printing of Steem. The problem that Steemit is solving is the monetization of the content web and it does so by the production and distribution of money (Steem). Steemit does not use the old business model of using Ad sales and stealing people's information. What we have achieved is that we have killed two birds with one stone. We have solved the problem of social media monetization and also the problem of the production and distribution of money.

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Steem

Why Steem needs Steemit

• Steemit is a tool for mass adoption of Steem.
• Steemit is a Trojan horse. Most people are drawn to this site because of the reward but before they know it, they are transformed to cryptocurrency fanatics because they keep learning and seeing the realness and potential of cryptocurrency. So in a way, Steemit is a positive trojan horse.

Why Steem needs a Blockchain

• Steem need a record that is transparent, decentralized, secure and immutable. Other peculiarities of the Steem blockchain is its speed and ability to handle thousands of transactions per second.

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Steem Blockchain

_Source

Why the Steem Blockchain needs a Cryptocurrency.

• Grease the Wheels — The token is needed to power the blockchain.
  Cryptocurrency is the financial incentive provided to the miners to perform their function. The miners secure the network and in other to make sure that they remain honest, there should be an incentive to remain honest.

• A claim to an asset that is fungible and tradable

• Equity — A “stake” or ownership

• Currency — A payment method between participants

Does a blockchain need a cryptocurrency? Nope! If it is a private blockchain like R3’s Corda and IBM’s Fabric it doesn't need a cryptocurrency but a public blockchain needs a cryptocurrency.

Why the Steem Blockchain needs Steemit.

• it needs to be used. Imagine you have a perfectly scalable, fast, transparent, immutable, decentralized record and network, but it has no use. What is it used for? There are many ways to use this ledger and Steemit is just one of them. Steemit is the use case of the Steem blockchain.

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I hope this was value for your time.
Thank you for reading.

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_{Steem Ambassador}