Alright Guys and Gals. Steemit is blowing up!
People are making thousands of dollars and if you’re reading this, I’m willing to bet that you want to be a part of this incredible new community too.
But (and it’s a big but) it’s super complicated and can be confusing as all hell!
Well fear not my fellow aspiring Steemers. I’ll break it all down for you.
And I won’t get too technical because I’m not an expert.
But I can give you the simplest version of everything that you need to know to get started!
What is Steemit?
Steemit is a social network that looks and functions a lot like Reddit, but with one HUGE difference:
Steemit pays both the content creators when their work gets upvoted, as well as the people who curate the best content on the site by upvoting others work.
This is possible because the Steemit platform is built on top of a new kind of digital currency. (Think Bitcoin, which is another kind of digital currency that has been around for a while.)
Every day, new units of the currency are created by the network and distributed to its users, who can exchange these digital currency units for actual real money.
And it doesn’t cost a dime to get started.
You can create a Steemit user account for free, right now, and be publishing your content directly to the site within minutes using Steemit’s built in blogging/publishing tools.
If you’re skeptical at this point, I get it. I was too.
But it’s definitely the real deal.
So let’s dive in. I’ll show you how it all works.
How does Steemit work?
In some ways, Steemit is similar to other digital currencies. For example, Steemit currency units can be traded, bought, and sold on the open market just like all of the other digital currencies.
With other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, the actual currency units that are created each day are distributed to the people who run a special bitcoin software program on their computers that perform a process called Bitcoin Mining. The amount of computing power you have dictates how much money you get.
Steemit allows for currency mining as well, but it’s not the primary way to earn money. Every day, new Steemit currency units that are created by the network and distributed to the people who engage with the site. The more you engage, the more you get.
People who create content are rewarded for their content. People who upvote content are rewarded for helping to curate the best content available on the site. Commenters who add to the discussions are paid too.
The 3 Steemit Currency Units:
The first thing you need to understand is that there are three different kinds of Steemit currency units.
We have Steem, Steem Power, and Steem Dollars.
Confusing right? It was for me. But it will all make sense in a minute.
Steem:
Steem are the units that are bought and sold for actual money on the open markets. You can trade them as you would bitcoins or a company’s stock.
But you don’t want to hold on to these for too long because more Steem Units are created every single day. If you hold onto Steem Units for a long time, they will become diluted and lose value.
Steem Power:
Owning Steem Power Units is essentially like making a long term investment in the currency because you can’t sell Steem Power Units for 2 years. But there are a lot of good reasons to have Steem Power.
By keeping your currency as Steem Power Units, you will be able to make considerably more money in the long run because you essentially have ownership in the network. As the network grows, so will your piece of the pie.
And you’ll be heavily rewarded along the way. The way things are set up now, 90% of the new Steem Currency that is generated every single day is distributed to the people who already hold Steem Power Units in the form of additional Steem Units. (The other 10% goes to content creators and curators).
Half of the pay you receive for your content will be in Steem Power Units.
Also, the more Steem Power Units you have, the more your curation vote will count. You will have more influence on the site and you will also get paid more for upvoting other people’s work. (When you upvote someone’s work, they will get paid more as well.)
Steem Power Units also play one final and very important role. They prevent massive price swings and volatility on the open markets. Because everyone is locked in for 2 years, we can’t all sell our currency all at once if the market starts to dip, which would crash the price were it to happen.
Steem Dollars:
Steem Dollars are the third and final form of the currency and never get diluted or lose their value. They are designed to be a stable currency that you can sell at any time. When you create popular content, 50% of your pay will be in Steem Dollars.
And you’ll be rewarded for holding Steem dollars too. It’s not nearly as much as the rewards for holding Steem Power. But because it still keeps the currency in the network, holding Steem Dollars pays 10% interest.
When you earn Steem Dollars for creating content, you have three choices:
You can convert the Steem Dollars to Steem and sell it immediately on the open market for real money, essentially cashing out.
You can hold the Steem Dollars, which keeps the money in the network and pays you 10% interest. You can sell them at any time. If you think the value will go up and want to sell at some point in the near future, this is your best option.
You can exchange your Steem Dollars for Steem Power. If you want to invest in the future of the currency and reap the biggest rewards, this is the way to do it.
How are the newly created Steem distributed each day?
Every day 90% of the new Steem units are rewarded to the people who hold Steem Power Units.
10% of the new Steem units are paid to content creators, curators, and commenters.
When you create content that actually earns money, 50% is paid to you in Steem Dollar Units that can be exchanged for actual money right away (or converted into Steem Power). The other 50% is paid in Steem Power. The Steem Power Units are locked up for 2 years.
How to cash out your earnings:
Once you start earning Steem and you want to actually cash out, what do you do?
So it's Steem dependence day. Your Steem account is looking rosy, you have a pile of Steem power & lots of Steem Dollars. Now you feel rich - what can you do?
- Cash out (not recommended)
I wouldn't recommend this because the markets are very thin at the moment, and you won't get very good rates. You can probably cash out a few hundred dollars if you need it.
You need to convert your Steem Dollars to Steem, Steem to Bitcoin, then Bitcoin to cash
The quickest way is to go through Steemit's internal market. Then place an order to buy steem with your Steem Dollars. You can either take a current price, or place an order.
Now you've been paid in Steem Dollars - what should you do?
alexc (66) in steem • 2 years ago
So it's Steemdependence day. Your Steem account is looking rosy, you have a pile of Steem power & lots of Steem Dollars. Now you feel rich - what can you do?
- Cash out (not recommended)
I wouldn't recommend this because the markets are very thin at the moment, and you won't get very good rates. You can probably cash out a few hundred dollars if you need it.
You need to convert your Steem Dollars to Steem, Steem to Bitcoin, then Bitcoin to cash
The quickest way is to go through Steemit's internal market. Then place an order to buy steem with your Steem Dollars. You can either take a current price, or place an order.
For the next part you will need a bitcoin wallet if you have one. (Although you can skip this step, read on)
The next step is to exchange Steem into Bitcoin.
There are a few places you can do this, but the quickest is probably through Blocktrades Send the steem to the address is says, and enter your Bitcoin wallet's receive address.
Then you can exchange your bitcoin into cash, or bank deposit (or other means) with something like LocalBitcoins.com.
LocalBitcoins has a wallet function which means you can send it Bitcoins from your Blocktrades exchange.
It's a bit hassley and difficult as the market is so illiquid now. But it is possible.
- Convert your Steem Dollars into Steem now -> Then power up
Alternatively you can use your Steem to power up. This is probably the better option, as you're reinvesting in the site.
The question is whether you convert your steem dollars into steem now on the market, or wait for it to be converted through Steemit's conversion mechanism which takes a week.
I believe that at the end of the week, your steam dollars will be converted at the average rate on the exchange.
Personally, I think the value of Steem is going to keep rising, so I decided to convert my Steem Dollars into Steem while the rate is cheap. The USD value of Steem is up 67% today.
I'm powering up.
- Hold your Steem Dollars as they are
Alternatively you can keep your Steem Dollars as they are. They should keep a fairly static value to the USD and also pay 10% interest. You can hold onto them until the market is more liquid. Then you could cashout or still power-up.
Where does the money come from?
So the natural inclination of those who visit Steem is to wonder who's giving out the money? Is this monopoly money? How does this all work? Many are naturally skeptical. Some may just dip their toes in the water. Others might dive in and ask questions later. Whatever the case, almost everyone probably wants a better idea about the theory behind Steem dollars, so here is a brief explanation:
A blockchain-based software network creates Steem dollars, to be used as currency, from loans on the value of Steem digital assets. Steem digital assets represent the ownership of this software network and have value because they're useful and they are scarce.
In general digital assets can be used as money, act like company shares or be used to access specific digital resources. The more people use any particular digital asset, the more they are worth. The estimated value for various digital assets can be found on the website Coinmarketcap.com. The website lists digital assets that are collectively valued at over $12 billion and growing and many of these digital assets like Bitcoin have value because they are both useful and scarce. The question just becomes how useful and valuable are each of these assets? Most people have a hard time understanding how something digital can have that much value. Isn't software easy to copy, corrupt or hack?
Digital Value? Beginning of Virtual Economies.
In the last decade, multi-player video games with virtual economies have demonstrated that digital goods have real world value. Some may treat video game items like collectible baseball cards. Others may find video game items useful to improve their virtual lives and satisfy a material, emotional or psychological need. Scarce items such as powerful weapons in a medieval fantasy game called Diablo or gold in World of Warcraft can take hours to find, earn or accumulate so they become valuable. In fact a game item in Diablo 3 sold for as much as $16,000. Many people have bought and sold virtual gold and other game items on World of Warcraft for dollars or exchanged them for real world goods. In the game Second Life, users create virtual characters, live in a virtual world and buy things like virtual real estate. Linden dollars, the virtual currency used in the game Second Life, are also traded for real dollars. One estimate of the secondary market of real money changing for digital goods was $2 Billion as early as 2007. This was just the beginning of virtual economies.
Is it Secure and Who Owns It? From Video Games to Bitcoin in the Real World.
The establishment of Bitcoin followed an independent path from the video game industry, but the value of virtual items and currencies had already been demonstrated. However with video games, game creators ultimately controlled the supply of these digital assets. If a system were to be created for the public, the control of the system would have to be more decentralized. There were also some key technological issues that had to be addressed to create digital money & asset systems that are secure & decentralized enough for broad public use as explained here: “Bitcoin: What Took Ye So Long? Bitcoin became the first real world experiment with blockchain-based money. Ever since the Bitcoin currency started in 2009 with unknown speculative value, it's since grown in value from millions to hundreds of millions and is currently estimated to be worth over $10+ billion. As mentioned earlier Bitcoin and alternative digital assets in total are estimated to be around $12+ billion. All this value is stored digitally on a network of computers using software. No banks or institutions are required! Today Bitcoin and other digital asset systems are practically impossible to hack or corrupt because they use advanced consensus mechanisms and military-grade cryptography.
Isn't Software Easy to Copy? Intangible Value
Digital assets are easy to copy or replicate. The same goes with software platforms. However, most of the value of Silicon Valley tech giants are intangible and rooted in the network effect. The more people that use a system the more valuable it becomes, and value increases exponentially for every new user that is added. Take Facebook or Twitter for example. The cost to develop the core software for each platform is probably in the millions using the latest technology. More than likely Facebook & Twitter can be built with hundreds of thousands of dollars and really crude versions can be built for tens of thousands. Many software developers can build a lot more for less because of the advancements in software technology, tools and open-source libraries. But even if a technological product were easy to replicate, would you expect copycats to be worth $330 Billion like Facebook is now or $10 Billion like Twitter? The brand, network effect and the psychological attachment people have to a particular product are all huge competitive advantages. Those are the same reasons that Bitcoin and other digital assets maintain value even when the technology is easy to replicate.
Furthermore creating sustainable business value is not just about the product. Just because you can cook a tasty burger doesn't mean you can create a business and take over McDonalds in a few years. If you can mix up a nice combination of soda ingredients it doesn't mean you'll dominate over Coca-Cola. McDonalds has been around since the 1940's and is currently valued at over $100 Billion and Coca-Cola started in the 1880's and is now valued at over $200 Billion.
Digital Assets – Money? Commodities? Stocks?
Money is what something is used for, not what something is - Daniel Larimer
Sea shells, beads, cows, real estate, tobacco, gold and silver all have been used as money at some time or another. The definition of money is subjective, but various commodities or assets have been used as money at different times in history, and in different situations and geographies. We have 180 government or bank issued currencies being used today. Some commodities or assets have better characteristics as a medium of exchange, store of value or unit of account, but any community or ecosystem can ultimately choose what they want to use as money.
Some of these new digital assets like Bitcoin can be seen as monetary commodity assets. Other digital assets are required to access or use a system's resources. For example, Ether is required to execute smart contracts on the Ethereum network and Safecoins are used to access storage on the Maidesafe network. Some digital assets are similar to company shares such as the DAO or Bitshares.
Why you should start now:
The short answer is that you have nothing to lose. It is 100% free to join and you can actually get paid for your work!
Unless you are a professional writer, you’re not going to find this kind of action anywhere else.
Also, Steemit is growing at an explosive pace! Hundreds of new users are flocking in every single day. And even though it’s only been around for a few months, it’s already become one of the top five digital currencies in terms of market capitalization.
In the last 24 hours alone, the value of a Steem has increased a mind bending 277%!!!
Remember, Bitcoins were basically worthless early on, but are now worth $10,000. You have the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new currency without spending a penny, but also to be a part of an incredible new social network.
How to get started:
First things first, you need to setup your account. You will need to use your Facebook account or Reddit account as you do this to verify that you are who you say you are. Your account will be very valuable so make sure to set a secure password.
Your Steem account is worth money! How to secure it with a new owner key to keep it yours forever
Creating your first post:
To start publishing content, all you have to do is click "Submit a Story" at the top right of the screen.
When publishing content, it’s important to format your articles in a way that will make them easy to read. Use images, headings, and subheadings to break up long blocks of text.
Use the “” button in the editor to activate the quote feature when quoting someone. And give the quote its own line like this
(The quote formatting button looks like this
No one ever wants to read a solid wall of text, so taking the time to format your article in a way that makes it pleasant to read will be crucial.
Posting Images:
As it stands right now, there is no way to upload your images to the Steemit website so posting images in your articles will require a workaround. The easiest way is to use https://imgsafe.org. All you have to do is create a free account and upload your pictures.
(It seems like the serveres at imgsafe.org are down. Use https://ipfs.pics instead. It's a great alternative.)
Once you have an image uploaded, simply click it, and copy the URL for the picture. Imgsafe gives each picture its own unique URL that you will use in Steemit to insert the picture into your post.
In the Steemit editor press the insert image button and paste the copied image URL. (If the URL starts with HTTP:// change it to HTTPS:// when you paste it into Steemit.)
What to write about?
That is the million-dollar question, isn’t it? The best advice I can give you is to explore the trending topics/tags as well as the trending posts within those sections and see what kind of content people are responding to.
Here is the direct link to register steemit.com.
The best rule in steemit is "KEEP YOUR PASSWORD IN A SAFE PLACE" if lost, your account may not be retrieve back.
Please if you find the post helpful kindly comment, upvote and resteem for other steemians to know this.
If you need to ask question please drop in the comment.
Thanks.