What is Steem (STEEM)?

Deep Dive

1. Purpose & Value Proposition

Steem was created to decentralize social media and return value to content creators. Traditional platforms profit from user-generated content while contributors earn nothing. Steem flips this model by making users stakeholders: they maintain control over their data and earn STEEM tokens for posting, commenting, and curating content. Its core value is enabling immediate revenue streams for online participation, powering a ecosystem of over 324 applications used by more than 1 million people.

2. Technology & Architecture

The network is built on Graphene technology and uses a Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism. Instead of miners, 21 elected "witnesses" produce blocks every 3 seconds, enabling fast, free, and scalable transactions suitable for social interactions. This design allows Steem to process a high volume of transactions—reportedly more than Bitcoin and Ethereum combined over a 24-hour period—making it capable of handling social applications at scale.

3. Tokenomics & Governance

Steem features a unique three-token economy:

• STEEM: The liquid, tradeable core token.
• Steem Power (SP): Obtained by "powering up" STEEM, it represents influence and governance rights. Holding SP grants more voting power on content and witness elections, and earns a share of new token inflation.
• Steem Dollars (SBD): A stable-value token pegged to ~$1 USD, designed for predictable rewards and transactions. New STEEM tokens are created through inflation, distributed with 90% going to content creators and curators and 10% to block producers (witnesses), directly incentivizing platform engagement.

Conclusion

Steem is fundamentally a blockchain infrastructure that monetizes social interaction through a fast, free platform and a sophisticated token-based reward system. How will its early "Social-Fi" model adapt to the next generation of decentralized social networks?