Explaining Steemit to My Friends: Blockchains and Cryptocurrencies

Since 2013, I've been talking a lot about Bitcoin which is a cryptographic currency. My friends started to pay attention when this "silly Internet money" went all the way up to $1,200. Even then, I didn't sell because I was convinced it would go much higher someday or be replaced by something better. It's been volatile, to be sure, but still has real value and can be used to buy just about anything.

Recently, I've gotten really excited about Steem. Yes, really excited. I've missed a lot of sleep and a couple meals diving into this to understand what's going on here. I've read the 44 page white paper, and I've spent days hanging out in the Steem Slack channel learning directly from the community and the core developers. In a nutshell, Steemit is a decentralized social media platform built on blockchain technology which pays content creators and curators in tokens of real value.

That last sentence may have just sounded like "blah blah blah techno-speak blah blah" to you. So here's another attempt at explaining.

How does a social media site sound where there are no ads, no trolls (so far), and no censorship? What about being paid to use it?

Did the video help explain what's going on? Let me know what questions you have, and I'll do my best to find answers for you.

Luke Stokes
Original content written for Steemit.
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