🌱 Early Beginnings of steem coins (2016)
Early Beginnings (2016)
Steem was launched in March 2016 by
Ned Scott and
Dan Larimer,
Steemit, a platform where users could earn rewards for posting and curating content, was powered by it.
It introduced a revolutionary idea: social media + cryptocurrency rewards.
🚀 Rapid Growth & Popularity (2016–2017)
Steem was one of the first Web3 social platforms, and it quickly gained attention.
The price of STEEM skyrocketed in 2017 (during the crypto boom):
From a few cents to more than $8 USD at its highest point.
It became one of the top cryptocurrencies by market cap at the time.
⚙️ Unique System
Three key tokens were introduced by Steem:
STEEM is a cashable, liquid coin.
Steem Power (SP) – platform influence
Steem Dollars (SBD) are a reward token that is stable.
This system compensated:
Content producers
The curators
📉 Decline & Challenges (2018–2019)
Following the 2018 crypto market crash:
The price of STEEM decreased significantly.
Platform issues:
Concerns about centralization
Governance conflicts
Declining user engagement
🔥 Major Turning Point (2020)
TRON was started by Justin Sun) acquired Steemit Inc..
The Steem community and TRON came to a major disagreement as a result of this.
🔀 The Split – Birth of Hive (2020)
The community forked the blockchain due to disagreements:
Built a hive.
Hive was adopted by many developers and users.
The ecosystem and popularity of Steem were significantly impacted by this.
📊 Recent Years (2021–Present)
Steem continues to function, but has a lower level of popularity than at its peak.
faces stiff opposition from Web3 platforms that are more recent.
Blogging and content rewards are still supported, but the community is smaller.
🧠 Why Steem Matters
Steem was important because it:
Pioneered earn-from-content models 💰
Inspired platforms like Hive and others
introduced social media in token form
📌 Simple Timeline
2016 – Launch 🚀
2017 – Massive growth 📈
2018 – Market crash 📉
2020 – TRON takeover + Hive fork 🔥
Now – Smaller but still running ⚙️