Steemit
Type of site | Social news community |
|---|---|
| Available in | English; but content is available in several languages. |
| Website |
www |
| Registration | Mandatory for editing |
| Users | >40000 (as of July 28, 2016)[1] |
| Launched | 2016 |
| Current status | Active |
Steemit is a social news service[2] which combines a blogging site/social networking website, and a cryptocurrency, known as Steem.
History
The project was founded in 2016 by Ned Scott and Dan Larimer, creator of BitShares.[3][4]
Concept
The idea was described in a whitepaper in March 2016.
The general concept is similar to other blogging websites or social news websites like Reddit, but the text content is saved in a blockchain. Images and other multimedia content must be embedded from other websites.
Members can upvote good content, and the authors who get upvoted can receive a monetary reward in a cryptocurrency named Steem and two other tokens named Steem Dollars and Steem Power. People are also rewarded for curating popular content. Curating involves upvoting submissions and comments.[4]
Monetary system
Steem
Steemit is based on a cryptocurrency named Steem. This currency is similar to Bitcoin, using Proof of work as a consensus mechanism. However, it does only reward miners with a small part of the rewards created in each block; the rest is paid to authors and curators.
Steem has a inflationary supply model: every year the monetary base doubles, but all three-and-a-half years the Steem reward per block is lowered at a rate of 1:10.[4]
Steem's blockchain is the base for two more tokens: an asset called Steem Dollars, which is intended to be pegged at the United States dollar and is used for a part of the payout to authors and curators, and Steem Power. Steem and Steem dollars can be freely traded on cryptocurrency exchanges.
Steem Power
Steem Power is an influence token and roughly represents the percentage of influence a certain user has compared to the rest of the community, measured in Steem. It cannot be traded directly, but can be converted to Steem in 104 weekly payments. This method is called Powering down.
Members at the start are awarded a small amount of Steem Power. They have the option of buying more Steem Power with Steem tokens, using an option called powering up.
In order to reward members, 9 units of Steem Power are distributed pro rata over all Steem Power holders, per unit of Steem which is created, thereby maintaining the monetary value of Steem Power. This discourages long term holding of Steem.
The more Steem Power a member has, the higher the impact of his votes on other content is. If a person has enough Steem Power, his votes will result in the author of the upvoted content being rewarded in additional Steem Power, and additionally in Steem dollars.
Steem dollars
The Steem dollar is an asset intended to be pegged to the US dollar. Steem dollars can be traded at cryptocurrency exchanges and used for payments of goods and services.
There is an exchange integrated in the Steemit website, where Steem can be traded to Steem Dollars. A user owning Steem dollars also can convert Steem Dollars directly into Steem in a process that lasts approximately a week, or he can keep them in his web wallet.
Steem dollars which are held receive an interest rate. Initially it is set at 10% annually, but if Steem dollars become worth more than US dollars, interest payments will be halted. If Steem dollars are being traded below parity with the dollar and the supply of Steem dollars is not too high relative to the liquid Steem supply, the interest rate will rise.
If a person chooses to convert his Steem dollars to Steem he can do two things with this Steem: Sell or use the Steem as a cryptocurrency, or convert them into Steem Power.
Usage and media coverage
As of July 2016, there are more than 40,000 Steemit accounts. After an initial public beta for which no payments were made, the hard fork on July 4, 2016 saw $1,300,000 of Steem paid out to Steemit users.[5]
The exchange rate of Steem compared to Bitcoin rose continuously during June and July 2016, peaking at a price of over 3 US dollars.[4] In most of July 2016, Steem had the third largest market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies monitored by the website Coinmarketcap.com, reaching a first notable peak at July 20, with about 405 million US dollars.[6] It is now under 90 million US dollars.
Steem has been described as a disruptive blockchain-based media community by Adam Hayes (Investopedia) in July 2016.[4] It got media coverage in cryptocurrency- and business-related media.[7][8]
References
- ↑ Source: Steemd (Steem blockchain explorer)
- ↑ https://steemit.com
- ↑ Steemit Social Media Platform Pays Its Users, Sees Massive Growth; bitcoin.com; June 9, 2016
- 1 2 3 4 5 Steemit: The Disruptive Blockchain-Based Media Community, Investopedia, July 26, 2016
- ↑ "Social Media Blockchain Steem Issues $1.3MM Payout To Steemit Users". THE DASH TIMES. 2016-07-05. Retrieved 2016-08-10.
- ↑ Steem, coinmarketcap.com.
- ↑ New Social Media Platform Steemit Experiences Growth Since Launch, Coindesk, June 9, 2016
- ↑ Steemit cypto-currency sees huge boost in market cap, The New York Business Journal, July 13, 2016