This technological world we are living in, brings us new and exciting tools almost everyday. It's impossible to wrap your head around it all. One technology that has taken the world by storm lately is this thing called Blockchain. People are saying it is going to revolutionize the world and is the next greatest thing to the internet. If we compare the two hype cycles from gartner, 2015 and 2016, we suddenly see that blockchain was not to be seen in 2015, but suddenly in 2016, it has already hit the peak of inflated expectations.
2015: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3114217
2016: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3412017
If you take this comparison and combine it with these articles:
- https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/11/the-blockchain-is-the-new-google/
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/don-tapscott/whats-the-nextgeneration-_b_6859156.html
We can start to consider blockchain to be the next big thing, and atleast that it's here to stay!
Where does Steemit.com and monetized upvotes come in?
steemit.com is a new blockchain content publishing platform that allow for upvoting and downvoting the posted content. Pretty similar to reddit.com. But the one part where steemit beats reddit, is a direct link between upvotes and cash, or crypto currency to be precise.
steemit.com has created a platform where users sign up for free, post content for free, and if the content is appriciated by the other users, the poster get money for free. The poster get rewarded directly for his contributions and efforts put into creating that specific content.
This is starting to sound something what a scammer would have said, but honest to god, this really has potential. Again something they would have been very convincing about.
The only way to prove the validity of the platform is to tell you my experience with steemit.com
It all started with me scrolling the internet with my phone in july 2016, on the train, heading to Stockholm. I found this article from the guardian which piqued my curiousity. I had recently started to grow interested in blockchains, from when I attended Blockchainday in Oslo back in April. So i did some googling to figure out what this Steem was, which eventually led me to steemit.com.
Seeing all those dollars next to the upvote button made me think that this was to good to be true! So I decided to try it out, on the train, on my phone, to see if there was anything to this platform!
So i ended up writing about another super trend at the moment, which was Pokemon Go: https://steemit.com/pokemon-go/@vongohren/how-pokemon-go-became-so-popular
I can't really justify the content in this article, it was written in 15 minutes, on a mobile phone, on a train. But it was a test to see what the platform was all about. And i'm quite glad i tried it out.
As you can see on the upvotes it did provide $414, where $103 went to the curators and $311 went to the author. Which I was.
But, and there's always a but, this is just an estimated dollar value based on last weeks market price of the current steem crypto currency. And steemit.com has done it so that you won't get all the crypto currency paid out in liquid assets. According to steemit's whitepaper they do a 50-50 split on liquid assets and non liquid assets:
**"When a post receives a payout it takes the form of 50% Steem Dollars and 50% Steem Power. The Steem Power give the user increased voting and transaction power while the Steem Dollar gives the user an immediate benefit in a stable currency. As we’ve already discussed at length, both Steem Power and Steem Dollar are designed to encourage long-term holding rather than short-term selling." **
So now I had earned about $150 of liquid assets and had to see if this could be turned into actual FIAT money. That turned out to be kinda easy.
All that had to be done was to create an account at an exchange exchange that accept Steem as a tradable crypto currency. Then trade the Steem to a FIAT currency, and withdraw that into your own bank account. But to be able to do this withdraw process, you have to verify yourself properly and they do add a lot of fees for this withdraw. But there are plenty of other solutions out there, and since Bitcoin is highly tradeble, I decided to buy Bitcoin, and keep my earnings within the crypto currency environment.
I got hooked and started to post other Pokemon Go articles:
- https://steemit.com/pokemon-go/@vongohren/low-hanging-fruit-business-ideas-during-this-pokemon-go-craze
- https://steemit.com/pokemon-go/@vongohren/how-to-find-that-rare-pokemon-in-your-area
But that didn't go so well. I had to find myself a new niché. So I decided to create a Steemit.com community in Norway, by creating a meetup group, and see if there was some interest for discussions around this platform.
The group was created, and suddenly people started to join. I decided to be quick about it and create a first get together. Just over some beer so we could meet eachother. This was posted to steemit.com: https://steemit.com/steemevents/@vongohren/norway-s-first-steemit-meetup to announce Norways first meetup event, and see if I could get some support from the community to buy the members some beers.
The community came through with a great deed and upvoted that post to $855, where the author, me, would recieve $731. After the split of non liqiuid and liquid assets, and the conversion to bitcoins, I had about 0.5 bitcoins, which was valued at that moment at 2485 KR. I found a local bitcoin dealer: http://bitmynt.no/, which I got referred to by others in the Norwegian community. This transaction works so, that you send the amount of bitcoin to him, he will send you NOK to your bank account, based on the current rate when he recieved the bitcoin into his wallet, with enough confirmations. You contact him first of course, but all that is explained on his page.
So now I had 2485 KR to buy beer for my fellow steemians. 12 people met up, we had some good discussions and nice to talks, and everybody who wanted beer through out the evening, got it. I did do a follow up story to show the community what their contribution went to: https://steemit.com/steemevents/@vongohren/reports-from-the-norways-first-meetup
That post did also really well! And the profit from that has been turned into bitcoins, and are currently beeing invested in the blockchain/crypto currency world, in hope to grow and be used at later meetups.
I can't praise the site without mentioning what is beeing said about this platform. When I first mention this to people, they say "Pyramid scheme" or "Ponzi scheme". It's pretty much everybodys first reaction. And the next thing they say is that users don't pay to upvote, so where does the money come from?
First of all, bitcoin was called a ponzi scheme in its early stages. Often times, everything that seems too good to be true and can't be understood is some sort of scheme. A ponzi scheme is an individual or organization, who pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned through legitimate sources. Following are some links to some argumentations around steemit.com and ponzi scheme:
- Steemit Criticized For Ponzi Scheme-Like Network
- The Great Steemit Debate: Tone Vays vs. Jeff Berwick “Ponzi Scheme or Paradigm Shift?”
- Is steemit a ponzi scheme
- SteemIt - Ponzi scheme, pyramid scheme, a bubble or pure genius?
- How the Steem pyramid scheme really works
But you won't be in risk of the scheme if you don't invest in the platform. You could rather just be a content provider and get your reward from that.
So basically since people don't pay to upvote, then one can wonder where the money comes from. But to get some insight into the crypto currency world I would like to use bitcoin as an example.
When bitcoin was introduced it had no value. The coins were created out of nothing. People where mining(terminology in blockchain) to get rewarded with bitcoins when they “solved” a block. So people were gaining a crypto currency that had no value. Then an exchange was created, saying that they would trade FIAT money for bitcoin. This caught attention, a currency that was anonymous, going outside of all banking regulations, and had some familiar value. People started to accept bitcoin as something that could be used and worth something, and bitcoin started to gain value.
The same is being done with steem, except that it's not the mining that is providing new steem coins to the people, it's the upvoting. People provide content, it is accepted as good content by beeing upvoted, steem coins are generated, and rewarded to the provider. Content generation and the following votes is the mining.
Exchanges have started to accept steem and steem dollars, there is a lot people on the steem platform, and there are people willing to buy and sell these coins. This gives the steem currency a value! And since the exchanges are willing to sell for FIAT money, people get real legal tender currency for their steem and steem dollars, and can live from their contributions.
Go to steemit.com, sign up, join the community, share your thoughts, be a part of the blockchain revolution and get into the crypto currency world! Don't invest in something you're not sure about, do your research if you consider to invest. Or just live the happy life as a content provider.