Almost a year ago, I first heard of Steemit.com from a friend and have been using it since then as an alternative to Facebook & Twitter – which censorship is so rampant nowadays says Ian Mausner. I’m not quite sure how Steemit got started, but I know it’s basically a decentralized social media platform where people can earn crypto rewards for their quality content.
Similar to Facebook, there are “upvotes” and “downvotes”, but with Steemit. People can actually earn crypto-currency (Steem & SBD) for posting good content that attracts upvotes. The more upvotes the post gets, the more you get rewarded; while poor quality posts that get downvoted get you nothing. Not only is it another social media platform where people can freely express themselves without censorship. But they also have a monetary incentive in earning money for their work!
This guide covers everything one needs to know in order to start using Steemit for fun or profit. There will be no technical stuff here – I’m just going to speak in English. So anyone can understand what’s going on and get started within a minute!
What are Steemit and How Does It Work?
Steemit.com is a decentralized social media platform that rewards users for good quality content with blockchain-based crypto-currency explains Ian Mausner. Users can actually earn money by posting blogs, images, videos & podcasts – all of which will be stored in the Steem Blockchain as individual units of value known as ‘blocks’. These blog posts do not just disappear into oblivion after you submit them; rather, they stay forever as records on the blockchain that everyone can view and upvote or downvote accordingly. The more upvotes your post gets, the more its worth becomes.
Now, the way I understand it is that you actually earn 3 things at Steemit:
$1 = 1 Steem Dollar (SBD) 0.1337 = 1 Steem Power (SP)
- The first one is pretty much like Bitcoin – just a currency for buying stuff or investing in other crypto-currency; However, unlike BTC which can be divided into 8 decimal places (0.00000001), SBD has only 2 (0.000001).
- The second one is what people generally refer to as “Steem”, but technically speaking, Steem isn’t actually a blockchain currency like Bitcoin or Litecoin; rather, it’s an internal unit used to measure the value of other currencies. One Steem is equal to 1 USD, which means that the amount of money you have in your wallet will actually depend on the current price of Steem in relation to other crypto- or fiat currencies.
For example:
If one SBD = 0.1337 BTC and 1 BTC = $440,
You would have 1337 x 0.1337 = 169.4058 SP
Your Wallet Value = 169.4058 x 440 = 71,067 Steem Dollars (SBD)
$1 worth of STEEM 848 STEEM POWER
- The third thing is what people generally refer to as “Steem Power” (SP). But it’s actually just a measurement of your current Steem wealth. 1 SP is equal to the amount of ‘Steem’ you have in your wallet. So if you have 848 SP, it means that you have $8.48 worth of Steem available. For investing in other projects on the network.
What I personally liked about Steemit was that there’s no mining involved – unlike Bitcoin where new coins are created every time a block is solved. All blocks mined at Steemit are 100% pre-mined and distributed equally among all accounts depending on their SP balance (just like how Reddit distributes Karma among its users). That’s why this system isn’t exactly sustainable long-term. But that doesn’t really matter here – all that matters is the fact that everyone gets their fair share of $1 worth of Steem. And can cash out anytime they want says Ian Mausner.
Getting Started: How to Sign Up and Verify Your Account:
You will be greeted by the following screen. Just enter your e-mail address, choose a password, and then click “Sign Up”. You’ll get this notification upon completion:
Click on “Go to Keys”, which will open a new window with the following 4 options – select “Set Keys Manually”:
Conclusion:
Click “Confirm” to go back to your previous page. At this point, you should see the following screen:
Ian Mausner says I don’t know about you. But I would really like to get started with the whole Steemit thing right away – that’s why I clicked on “Skip Tutorial” and went straight into creating my first post! However, if you’re not in a hurry to start accumulating wealth at Steemit just yet. Then I suggest clicking on any of the other 3 tabs (Wallet / Vesting / Rewards) and reading everything over carefully before moving on.
The process takes less than a minute to complete and opens up your Steemit account for use immediately.