What is STEEM?
Steem (STEEM) is a crypto currency that should always be considered in relation to the Steemit platform. Steemit is a blogging and social media website that looks and works similar to Reddit, but is based on the Steem blockchain. On Steemit, users can upload content from other users and reward them for creating high-quality content. Steemit not only pays the content creators, but also the users who curate the website content. Therefore, the network generates STEEM on a daily basis and it is distributed to the people who update and curate the content on Steemit.
Payment on the platform is made with the crypto currency Steem, although this is not exactly correct, since Steem is three different monetary units: Steem, Steem Power and Steem Dollars. As we will see later, each coin has a different function. Steem, however, is the crypto currency, which can be freely traded on the crypto currency market, just like Bitcoin or Ethereum.
While other cryptocurrencies use mining to create new units and pay for the new units exclusively to the miners, the new steem units created by the network are distributed to the people who vote and select the content of Steemit.
Steem (STEEM)
As already mentioned, STEEM crypto currency is the currency that can be freely traded on many popular crypto currency exchanges. Compared to other cryptocurrencies, it is important to keep an important piece of information in mind. STEEM has no maximum supply. New stems are created every day (after a complicated calculation). The meaning behind this is that Steem should not be a store of value, but rather a currency for everyday use (on Steemit). Because of this, there is no point in keeping Steem for a longer period of time, as Steem is inflationary.
Steem Dollar (SBD)
The Steem Dollar is a stablecoin within the Steemite ecosystem, whose value (actually) should be pegged to the US dollar and have a value of $ 1.00. The Steem Dollar is a stable currency within the Steemite ecosystem. The SBD was created so that Steemit users are not affected by Steem's fluctuating exchange rate and can keep their income stable in value. However, a look at the Steem Dollar chart shows that the SBD is not as stable as a tie, if at all. In the period between December 2017 and July 2018, the price of the SBD fluctuated between USD 13.81 and USD 1.41. The SBD was trading at a price of $ 1.41 per share.
Regardless, Steem dollars are also the units that Steemite uses to reward platform users for publishing and curating content. Fifty percent of salary is paid in Steem Dollars. Additionally, Steem Dollar owners receive 10 percent interest for holding the coin.
Steem Power (SP)
The third coin within the Steemite ecosystem is Steem Power. As the name suggests, Steem Power represents vocal power within the platform. The more Steem Power a user has, the more their vote counts when selecting content and the higher the reward. In fact, a user can only vote if they don't have Steem Power.
While 50% of the reward is paid in Steem Dollars, the other half is paid in Steem Power. However, unlike SBD, Steem Power is a long-term investment, as it can only be repaid after 2 years. However, there is also a good reason to hoard Steem Power. This is because 90% of the Steem units generated daily are distributed to Steem Power owners. The remaining 10% goes (only) to content creators and curators.
The Steemit platform
The Steemit platform was a joint idea of BitShares founder Dan Larimer and Ned Scott. Like BitShares, Dan Larimer also left Steemit after a while and founded his current project, EOS.
The platform itself has grown significantly since the coin's launch on July 4, 2016. In May 2018, Steemit announced that it had reached the one million user milestone. According to its own information, Steem-Blockchain produces more than a million transactions every day. A transaction can be anything that happens on steemite: contributions, comments, votes, and of course, transactions.
Every day around 60,000 unique accounts process transactions on the Steem Blockchain (as of May 2018). Additionally, Steemit.com has over 250,000 unique daily visitors, and "there are hundreds of other DApps that interact with Steem Blockchain that have a large and growing number of users."
