What is Steem (STEEM)?

Deep Dive

1. Purpose & Value Proposition

Steem was created to realign incentives in social media. On traditional platforms, value from user-generated content accrues to shareholders. Steem flips this model by making users stakeholders. The blockchain automatically distributes newly created STEEM tokens as rewards for posting, commenting, and voting, aiming to directly monetize online participation (Steem).

2. Technology & Architecture

Built on the Graphene framework, Steem uses a Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism. Instead of miners, elected "witnesses" produce blocks every 3 seconds, enabling fast and feeless transactions for users. This design prioritizes scalability and user experience to support social applications at scale, distinguishing it from slower, fee-heavy chains like Bitcoin or early Ethereum (Steem FAQ).

3. Tokenomics & Governance

The system features a triple-token structure. STEEM is the base, tradeable currency. Steem Power (SP) is STEEM staked long-term, granting higher voting power on content and witness elections—unstaking takes 13 weeks. Steem Dollars (SBD) are designed to be stable, pegged to ~$1 USD. New tokens are issued via inflation, currently distributed with 90% going to content/curation rewards and 10% to witnesses (Steem FAQ).

Conclusion

Steem is fundamentally a blockchain infrastructure for decentralized social interaction, combining a community-rewarding economic model with a high-performance network. Its legacy as an early Social-Fi pioneer continues through active community curation and contests, as seen in recent Steemit challenges. How will its established model adapt to the next generation of decentralized social networks?