Hello everyone, a warm welcome to week 3 of season 5 of the steemit contest. I'm indeed happy to be participating in the contest series this new season. I hope everyone joining is happy to do so as well.

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The crypto academy community wants participants to discuss and explain their understanding of The Steem Blockchain, I will be responding to the assignment given.

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Question

Explain The following terms, STEEM, SBD, SP and TRX

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Steemit Reward Tokens

Steemit blog is a decentralized social blogging platform built on the Steem blockchain and was launched in 2016 as the first DApp on the Blockchain. Though, steemit's blog is based on written content, where users can join communities to engage and share related content. The steemit social network is incentivized such that creators on the platform are rewarded with tokens for creating original, non-plagiarized content.

There are generally four tokens associated with users within the steemit blog, with each serving a specific purpose in rewarding creators on the platform. The tokens used within the steemit platform are STEEM, SBD, STEEM power (SP), and TRX. I'll explain in detail below:

1) STEEM COIN

Launched alongside Steemit Blockchain in 2016, Steem coin is the native token used within the Steem Blockchain. The steem coin like its Blockchain is unique in what its utilities are, based on how the Blockchain operates. Ideally, steem coin is shared in ratios to the reward pool of the platform, and this enables creators to get rewarded based on their created contents and inputs.

According to Steem Blockchain's token metrics, about 75% of Steem coin in the reward pool is shared between the creators and the curators on the platform, while a 15% stake goes to large shareholder of the governance token (SP), and the last 10% is reserved as a reward for the witness that creates transaction block, verifies and signs transactions on the Blockchain.

Token Metrics

_{Screenshot was taken from coinmarketcap.com}
Steem coin statistics according to coinmarketcap shows that the current price of Steem at the time of this research is $0.2337. The steem coin has a trading volume of $28.7M in the last 24 hours and a market capitalization of $92.3M.

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2) STEEM DOLLAR (SBD)

Steem Dollar (SBD) is a token used within the steem Blockchain as a stable asset with a pegged value. The primary aim of launching this token was to stabilize the token economy of the steem blockchain. At first, the value of Steem Dollar (SBD) was pegged in a ratio of 1:1 against the USD dollar, big as the valuation of the Blockchain increased, the gap between the pegged asset and the dollar increased as well. This forced the price of SBD to break the 1:1 peg and trade higher prices.

Token Metrics

_{Screenshot was taken from coinmarketcap.com}

The Steem Dollar statistics according to coinmarketcap shows that the current price of the Steem Dollar against the US Dollar as at the time of this research is $2.41. The steem Steem Dollar token has a trading volume of $49.6M in the last 24 hours and a market capitalization of $28.1M.

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3) STEEM POWER (SP)

Steem power is a weighted token used within the steemit blog platform that indicates the user's vested share in the Blockchain and its related platforms. Steem power (SP) gives its stakeholders the power to contribute to the affairs of the blogging platform and steem Blockchain as a whole. Some primary functions of the Steem power (SP) token include giving exclusivity rights to its stakeholders to vote for witnesses (delegates). As previously explained, witnesses are nodes that create, verify, and sign block transactions on the platform.

Another primary function of Steem power (SP) is giving the witnesses (delegates) the required authority to validate and sign transactions when elected through voting. Ideally, the vested interest expressed in Steem Power (SP) is weighted, making it an essential token for governance in the Blockchain. Steem Power (SP) is also used as a measuring metric for identifying users' influence on the Blockchain. Users with little to no SP vested in their account are considered to have little to no influence, whereas, users with large chunks of Steem power (SP) have an enormous level of influence on the Blockchain.

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4) TRON (TRX)

TRX is the native token of Tron Blockchain, which is a decentralized Blockchain built to support creators' intellectual property rights. Tron Blockchain previously partnered with Steem blockchain in rewarding creators using their native token TRX on Steem. Initially, the partnerships quoted that every reward in Steem Power (SP) will be matched in direct equivalence with Tron (TRX), i.e in a ratio of 1SP: 1TRX.

But with the recent update, The TRX reward earned on the steem blockchain had been halved, such that the ratio of steem to trx earned as a reward is expressed in a ratio of 1SP: 0.5TRX. The partnerships between steem and Tron Blockchain aimed to promote Tron tokens, and also to increase the number of interactions made by users on Tron Blockchain. Lastly, it provided an opportunity for creatives on Steem Blockchain to earn more reward tokens.

Token Metrics

_{Screenshot was taken from coinmarketcap.com}

TRX's statistics according to coinmarketcap show that the current price of TRX against the US Dollar as at the time of this research is $0.0613. TRX has a trading volume of $280.7M in the last 24 hours and a market capitalization of $5.6B.

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Question

Explain The Benefits Of Building Ones SP in Steem Blockchain

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Building SP in Steem Blockchain

Building SP in steem simply means staking one's steem coin reward back into the Blockchain to contribute to the blockchain's growth and improve stability between demand and supply. There are some notable benefits for building SP in steem Blockchain, they include:

1) Voting Influence

Having a decent amount of Steem staked in the blockchain increases the influence of the account owner. Users with little to no amount of SP staked in the Blockchain are considered to have little to no impact on the policies and growth of the Blockchain, while users with large amounts of steem staked in their account are considered to be actively influential in contributing to the affairs of the Blockchain, such as voting witnesses, post, etc.

2) Voting Powers

On Steem Blockchain, building SP in one's account also earns them enormous amounts of voting weight, which is dependent on the amount of SP staked. Creators on the steem blockchain value upvotes from high-influence accounts, as it increases the reward margin from the reward pool.

3) Supply Control

Building SP on the steem blockchain increases the demand and reduce the supply of Steem coin. This balance the dynamics of price reduction due to excess supply. Thus, adding to the value metrics of steem coin in the Open traded market.

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Question

Explain The Meaning Of Curation in steem Blockchain and also explain if self-voting is a good or bad practice on the steem Blockchain

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Curation in Steem Blockchain

Steem blockchain is a social blogging platform that rewards its creators for their intellectual properties, and the vetting of these contents is done by other users on the platform. By definition, curation comprises the required processes of verifying, proofreading, and voting for posts, and content created by others on the platform.

There are three steps involved in curating content in steem Blockchain.

As known, Steem blockchain has a strong policy against plagiarism, and theft of intellectual property, thus the first step is verifying how original the contents of the post are. This step checks for plagiarism, use of un-referenced images, links, etc. After the post is vetted by other users, they can either upvote or downvote the post. If the post was flagged as plagiarized content, it's typically downvoted or not voted. In contrast to this, if the post is not plagiarized, it's upvoted.

The second step is proofreading the content to ensure that the content has no grammatical errors or wrong spelling. At this phase, curators also investigate to know if the content followed the required guidelines of the community and steem blockchain, this could be things like the use of markdown, club levels, tags, etc.

The third step is curators determining what percentage to vote on the content. This depends on the curators voting mana (this is the vote weight of a curator at a given time). The last part is to resteem the content for wilder outreach.

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Self-Voting

Self-voting occurs when a creator vote on a post created by them. In my opinion, I believe self-voting is bad social behavior, just like in real life, one can't be the true judge of their actions. The ethics of socialization on steem blockchain indicates that vetting and voting of content should be done by other members of the platform, who sort to verify how original, good or bad the content is.

In truth, self-voting emits an aura of pride, discontentment, and greed. You can equate this to giving self-appraisal in the workplace, which sometimes might be fun most often most times annoying.

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Question

Explain what you understand by the voting window In steem Blockchain. Vote two posts( one that is older than 7-days and one that is less than 7-days ) and explain to us what happened between the two posts. Does all the two voted post produce monetary value and do they consume your voting manna? Before carrying out this task please go to steemworld and screenshot your present voting manna

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Voting Window in Steem Blockchain

In the steem blockchain, the voting window refers to the period from which a post was created to the period the reward on the post was shared. This is usually a period of seven (7) days. During the valid voting, curators can review posts, comment, and upvote or downvote content to get a share from the post via the reward pool.

After the voting window has elapsed, the reward payout on the post will be shared between the creator and the curators in a ratio of 50%. After this period, any voting on the paid-out post is considered non-significant, but post engagement through comments can still be active on the paid-out post. This ensures that the post has a wide outreach.

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Voting Two Posts

As instructed, I took a screenshot of my account via steemworld and captured my account voting mana.
The screenshot is below:

_{Screenshot was taken from steemworld.org}
As seen above, the voting mana in my account is about 98.79% before participating in the challenge. I'll start with the expired voting widow post.

Scenario 1 (Expired Voting window)

For this illustration, I chose the crypto Academy season 5 post for the week 2 challenge post which was posted about 8 days ago and expired yesterday. The post payout was rated at $49.23. The author received $25.16 and the curators received $24.07. TRX was shared in similar proportions, 50.42 TRX for the author and 48.25 TRX for the curators.

_{Screenshot was taken from Steemit.com}
I attempted to upvote the post but I observed that nothing happened. I check my voting and noticed that it reduced by about 1.84%. I proceeded with the next post.

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Scenario 2 (Active Voting window)

For this illustration, I chose the crypto Academy season 5 post for the week 3 challenge post which was posted yesterday and has about 6 days left. So far The post has been voted by 105 users and has accumulated about $55.83. This accumulated reward will be shared between the author and the curators after the 6 days duration left.

_{Screenshot was taken from Steemit.com}
I attempted an upvote, and the post was upvoted. This implies that at the end of the 7-day voting window duration, I'll receive a fraction of the voting reward for curating the post. I check my voting and noticed that it reduced by about 1.84%.

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Final Observation

_{Screenshot was taken from steemworld.org}

From the about exercise, I observed that voting in both scenarios consumed my voting mana each by about -1.84%. Initially, my voting mana was about 98.79% but after interacting with the two posts, I noticed that the Mana dropped to about 95.11%.

The only monetary value I received was voting the second pot which was the post with an active voting window. This implies that posts with expired voting windows do not yield additional rewards if the waiting period has elapsed.

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Question

Advantages and disadvantages of STEEM Blockchain

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Advantages of Steem Blockchain

There are some notable advantages of the Steem blockchain, they include:

1. Steem Blockchain is built for the purpose of encouraging social interaction between users through writing and other related media content.

2. Steem blockchain's Steemit Dapp has provided opportunities for unlimited information, and self-expression through content writing and other related media.

3. Steem blockchain has a strict policy against plagiarism and improper representation of information. This is only right as the blockchain is based on the creation of original based information.

4. Steem Blockchain rewards its users with token incentives for the consumption of their created content thus encouraging creators to the progressive efforts.

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Disadvantages of Steem Blockchain

There are some notable disadvantages of the steem blockchain, they include:

1. Steem blockchain can experience high levels of inflation as the maximum number of Steem tokens is unknown. This could be very dangerous in managing the economy of Steem Blockchain in the long run.

2. Voting Imbalance is highly experienced in the Blockchain. Not until a post is voted by a user with high influence, the weight of other participant voting is considered to be small in comparison.

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Conclusion

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The Steem Blockchain is a content creation platform that rewards and supports creatives on the steemit blog platform. The true value is the originality and uniqueness of the content created on the platform. Content creation and curation are rewarded on the Blockchain with tokens like SBD, SP, and TRX. Steem Blockchain is indeed a good avenue for creatives to explore and get rewarded for their intellectual properties.