What is Steem?
In this Steem review I will go over the features of its blockchain network and native coin. Steem is a blockchain database which supports community building and social interaction with cryptocurrency rewards. Its cryptocurrency powers the application Steemit, which is native to the Steem blockchain. It acts like a community hub or social media outlet filled with content creators like reddit or Medium. STEEM coins are used to reward such content creators and other active members of the community in a transparent and unbounded way based on the contribution. There is currently no maximum supply limit for the coin.
Advantages
Except from the whole idea and functionality of the network, maybe the most notable feature it has is the lack of transaction fees. Yes, you can send and receive STEEM without paying any transaction fees. Some of the other advantages are:
- User friendliness – it is very easy to start and navigate through the platform
- Possibility to earn passive income through becoming a content creator
- Extremely fast transactions due to the short block time of 3 seconds
Disadvantages
Every blockchain project has its shortcomings. Unfortunately the main disadvantage here is that the developers of Steem are suspected of controlling the majority of the coin supply. Other notable deficiencies are:
- Centralized consensus – the network uses the dPoS consensus, meaning that big holders can vote for the same people
- There is a big activation period – you need to wait up to 2 weeks for an account to be activate. If you would like it instantly activated you have to pay a premium
History and Evolution
There is little information about how the blockchain of Steem came to be. The only information I could find is that it was created on 24th March 2016 by a miner. When the chain was created there was no publicly released software and it is not known who this first miner is.
In the year 2014, one of the leading social platforms, Reddit, had a hypothesis that the platform would be majorly improved if all activities within it like posting comments, voting, adding content etc, are rewarded with a fair share in Reddit, Inc. Steem aims to support and move social media, and online communities to the blockchain world. It will return most of its value to the users who provide valuable contributions via cryptocurrency rewards.
In the beginning, one of the founders of the network, Daniel Larimer was the lead developer of the Steem project. He was known to be a good developer, but a bit shady when it comes to proving facts. Daniel also was the one that created the BitShares and EOS projects.
While there is no official roadmap as of yet, I was able to find some information. These are a few updates that are supposed to be implemented soon in the network – Decentralized Exchange, Payments Through Escrow, Hierarchical Private Key Structure, Multi Sig Authorities, Smart Media Tokens (SMT) etc.
Steem’s Future
As I mentioned earlier, the Steem blockchain is tailor made from the ground up so it can pass the barriers to adoption and monetization of social media based economies. The main challenge for the Steem cryptocurrency is to come up with an algorithm for scoring and keeping tabs on individual contribution. Unfortunately, as I wrote earlier, there is no official roadmap and you cannot see the current status of development. You can visit their official website here and see their already achieved milestones if you are interested.
Steem Blockchain
Due to the consensus protocol (DPoS), the network can be considered as a semi-centralized blockchain. That is because the normal user can’t be part of the consensus mechanism. In a Delegated Proof of Stake network users need to delegate other users to be part of the consensus. This brings uncertainty with it, because voters can be bought, and users can have more than 1 delegated node. The interesting thing about the network is that although it is using maybe the most popular hashing function (SHA256), which is also used by Bitcoin, it can’t be mined. New coins can be issued only by delegated nodes as only they are full nodes and everyone else acts as a lightweight node. At all time there is a pool of 63 validators that are waiting for a chance to confirm a block, but only 21 of them are chosen at a time. With a 3 second block time, they don’t really stand around doing nothing.
Steem Nodes
In every network, nodes are the backbone of the system. In the Steem blockchain, there are 2 types of nodes:
- Block Producers (Witnesses) – they create the blocks and validate the transactions and consensus rules. They are the only full nodes on the network
- Lightweight nodes – they connect to the full nodes to get information about their transactions
How to Get Steem
In order to obtain STEEM coins, you can either become a content creator on the platform or buy the currency from an exchange.
Where to buy Steem
Not many exchange platforms offer the ability to buy cryptocurrencies with fiat (real life) money and from what I can find, STEEM is not sold in fiat pair on any exchange. What I can recommend is either buy Bitcoin or Ethereum and then use them in pairs with STEEM and trade them.
Nowadays everyone is using social media. Most people think that their lives would not be complete without a social platform that they can spend time in. Steem tries to take that to the next level and frankly, it never is a bad idea to invest into social media based apps as they tend to get large quickly.
| Exchange | Cryptocurrencies | Fiat Money | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Binance
|
Bitcoin + 2 more | – | Trade now |
|
Bittrex
|
Bitcoin | – | Trade now |
|
Huobi
|
Bitcoin Ethereum | – | Trade now |
Wallets for Steem
In order to be able to do any type of actions on any blockchain, you will usually need a wallet. Wallets are a program that holds two keys. One is the private key that is used to access your funds and the other is the public key that is used to receive cryptocurrencies.
For Steem coins, there is currently only one wallet that can support the currency and it is a web wallet that is residing in their native blockchain dApp – Steemit. You will need to register an account and create a wallet, which can take up to 2 weeks to be confirmed and receive a confirmation email. Of course, the web wallets are not the greatest place for holding coins as they are more prone to malicious intents but there doesn’t seem to be any other option. If you are eligible to be a block producer, you can go to their official chat and ask one of the developers for the official CLI client, which will require you to have a decent command line knowledge. You can find the official wallet here.
Alternative Wallets
As I mentioned above, there is only 1 wallet available for STEEM and there are no alternative wallets unfortunately.
Steem Network Security
From a security standpoint, it is very hard and tricky to hack a system like this, where you have to be chosen by the community in order to authority. The platform doesn’t offer any privacy or anonymity features and its security doesn’t mean that it’s decentralized. While yes, you can’t be hacked, you have to trust the chosen block producers to not decide to be malicious.
News and Useful Weblinks
If you would like to always be up to date with Steem updates and news, a good place to start is their official website, Steem Chat and official twitter page @steemit.