Introduction

The article below covers the homework task on the following;

1. Proof of Brain
2. Curation
3.Building SP
4. Self- upvote.
5. Coin Market Cap indication.
6. Tokens on Steem.

What is PoB? What does curation mean to you in steam blockchain? What are the benefits of building SP? How do you explain self-upvote as a good or bad social behavior and why? Explore coinmarketcap.com to indicate rank, steam price, and coin market cap of steam (screenshot required). What are the different tokens you buy by socializing in steem blockchain?

---

(1) What Is PoB?

In the competitive field of cryptocurrencies, Steem uniquely stands out because of it's properties of being both 'Smart' and 'Social' compared to other cryptocurrencies. Such a token based community system requires mechanisms for establishing and evaluating content's social value. Proof of Brain (PoB) is an algorithm where systems reward users that contribute to this token based community by sharing original and valuable content.

Image Source.

Communities thrive on the social blockchain by this ecosystem of blogging empowered by quality content creation which enables the users to give value to content by (upvoting) or redistributing it (downvote), it using the reward pool and the stake-weighted mechanism (SP).

Steemit is a decentralized blockchain based social media platform that is supported by people's independent knowledge and wisdom to determine the content value. If an article is considered useful or relevant, it can be upvoted and vice versa is true. Therefore Proof of Brain (PoB) is a combined thread of the reward pool, the independent insights and stake-weighted mechanism on the Blockchain.

---

(2) What does curation mean to you in Steem blockchain?

Image Source

Curation is a genius way to reward original and great content on the Steem blockchain. I imagine that due to the large number of people that is getting onto the platform, there is a lot of content to be curated and discovered.

Bloggers create content and by so doing add value to the network by creating material that will drive traffic to the platform and keep the existing users actively engaged. Users on the platform take time to evaluate and go through the created content thereby playing an important role in curating the content.

The trustworthiness of the source is checked for Plagiarism and if found free of it, the content is curated by interested parties. The curation process is important in distributing currency to the users who are adding the most value on the platform, relative to the knowledge of the crowd collected through the steak-weighted voting system. Valuable content is discovered through curation.

Curators are direct beneficiaries from the reward pool getting a 65% share along with content creators. Curation involves the upvote or downvote and being a decentralized system, everyone is free to decide for themselves wether to Up-Vote or Down-Vote. The curator reward is always in SP.

• Up-Vote
You upload a post by hitting the upvote button that points upward ⬆️ and a certain amount appears as digits, in the post payout, relative to the stake-weight and the voting weight of curator. Currency is instantly distributed from the reward pool to the post being a voted.

• Down-Vote
You down vote a post by hitting the button that points downward ⬇️, thereby redistributing the rewards; also relative to stake-weight and voting weight.

It's also important to remember that only 'Up-Voting' earns curation rewards at 7 days age of a post. At maturity, a post pay out is distributed between the author and curator in a 50:50 ratio. While curating, it's also important to upvote after the first 5 minutes because of the Reverse Auction (where curation rewards have 100% discount from 0 to 5 minutes and are returned to the reward pool) and before 6 days, and 12 hours due to depletion of upvote worth. After 7 days the vote won't produce any monetary value and is equivalent to zero '0'.

Image Source

The Curation Process;

• Discover a new post of less than 7days pay out, to sieve the best and push it to the top of the trending posts.
• Check for originality or Plagiarism
• If found plagiarized, indicate and copy to @ endingplagiarism
• If not, Upvote or leave comment.
• Resteem to create a network of engagement on posts, if it's of high value to the users on Steemit and your followers.

---

(3) What Are The Benefits Of Building SP?

This can also be related with HODL, or in a simpler version of terms; 'Holding On for Dear Life'. It encompassitates buliding stake- weight and keeping it there (HODLers). Why?

Resource Credits
Building SP should be a top level goal for users on the Blockchain. Building your SP is proportional to building your Resource Credits. Every transaction on Steem in terms of social activity such as commenting, posting and other non-monetary operations demand a consumption on the resource credits on the Steem blockchain. Therefore having a higher SP guarantees active and unbound interaction on the blockchain without 'counting down' how many times a user can interact.

Users with more Steem Power also have a higher bandwidth allowance to work with each week, especially in peak times when the blockchain becomes busiest.

Influence and Governance
Users have more power to influence the distribution and redistribution of rewards from the reward pool, when they posses higher SP. The reward mechanism highly favours users with higher stake-weight than those with lower SP thereby making thier votes more powerful in monetary value. This influence contributes to actively supporting communities and other users with quality content through curation, creating a sort of earned governance.

Becoming a stronger influence on the Blockchain thereby gets a user an 'attention' from other users, as they are regarded stronger in knowledge dissemination. This in turn creates a huge following for the user with higher SP.

Curation Rewards
Curators get 50% rewards on all post payouts paid, which is about 32.5% of the total reward pool. This creates an ecosystem where there is a distribution of power after 'Power Ups', and Proof of Brain (PoB) realization.

Image Source

A curator also gets SP as reward which is equivalent to better TRX reward per SP earned.

Privileges
Certain interactions on the Blockchain will require a minimum number of SP for a user to be able to take part. These may include certain community contests, and application submissions required for certain responsibilities or posts. Building SP gradually sets an account up for new opportunities and limitlessness possibilities on the platform.

Convergent Linear Rewards
More numbers of curators on a post rewards creates better content discovery. If therefore the value of SPs of the curators is low, the output in the Convergent linear reward is smaller. The vice versa is true. Having high SP makes each curator a strong contributor to a convergent linear reward.

---

(4)How do you explain self-upvote as a good or bad social behavior and why?

Self Upvote looks good and very tempting to any user because of 'presumed' addition on the vote count. However, the Self-upvote down plays the concept of Power of Brain (PoB) which requires active interaction of users by using their own personal perspective and knowledge to judge the best from the least quality and curate it.

Upvoting one's self disregards discovery of content and unbiased judgement to reward users.

Self Upvote also means that the content remains in the lower Sub-linear zone thereby disregarding the Convergent linear reward that motivates users to take time to find and discover great content, engage on each other's posts and earn better curation rewards as they reach agreement on quality content curated as a whole cumulative lot.

Self Upvote is in a way, an isolated judgement which earns low curation rewards and disregards quests for quality.

---

(5) Explore coinmarketcap.com to indicate rank, steam price, and coin market cap of steam (screenshot required)

Images from www.coinmarketcap.com indicating;

RANK of Steem

Steem PRICE

COIN MARKET CAP of Steem

The information in the Coin Market Cap, shows the current and real values of the Steem token coin on the Cryptocurrency market. The Rank = #278 . The Steem Price = $0.1994 and Coin Market Cap = $77,562,095.72

---

(6) What are the different tokens you buy by socializing in steam blockchain?

Tokens enable writers to create beneficial community based economic incentives to drive platform growth and help monetize content. The different tokens you buy whilst socializing on the steam blockchain include, STEEM, SP, SBD and TRX.

STEEM
This is a liquid token for short term trading which can go up or down in value, that is readily tradable to bitcoin, also tradable for any local fiat currency of choice. However, it cannot be mined as it's Proof of Work has been removed from it. Because of this, Steem uses 'witnesses' instead of miners to produce blocks in a new blockchain technology called 'Graphene'. This allows great efficiency in block production where 10% of new coins produced are paid to witnesses and the remaining 90% to curators, content creators, and as Steem Power to 'SP HODLers'

STEEM POWER
This token is generated from curation rewards (50%of curated post), author rewards (25%of curated post) or (50%of curated post of set to 50%SBD/50%SP, or 100% Power Up).

In order to build up and realise influence and governance, users use the strategy of HODL, an investment strategy that shuns short term price moves and does away with *Fear Of Missing Out" (FOMO) and other uncertainties. Holding SP also shows desire to invest in and add value to the token, as well as influence on platform.

Steem Power can be powered down in a period of 04 weeks into Steem, and consequently be Powered Up by buying Steem on the internal market using SBD, and transferring it into Steam Power.

All these conversion processes take less than 3 seconds on the Steem blockchain.

SBD
These are also easily tradable tokens that are transferable anytime and can be withdrawn. They can also be used to buy goods or services with acceptance between parties. SBDs are acquired with 25% of total rewards on a post or setting rewards to 50%SBD/50%SP. A user can buy Steem and or Power up using SBD.

TRX
To vote for Super Representatives, one needs to have Tron power; Tron power is TRX that is powered up. TRX is the token in the Tron Blockchain, and users can now earn TRX by interaction on the Steem Blockchain on a ratio of 1 SP : 1 TRXbecause of a partnership between Steem Inc and Tron in 2020, although they are both from different blockchains.

Conclusion

Discussed above are the Basics of the Steem blockchain including the reward pool, the Proof of Brain, Curation and the reasons why self upvote is not an option on the platform. The above discussion also tackles the meaning of holding a higher stake_weight, and the many tokens available on the Blockchain that the user benefits from. I submit; Thank you @sapwood professor.