I enjoy learning how Steemit works under the covers. Until reading this I had no idea that blockchain data is represented in JSON format, but it seems like a very natural choice. It's such a universally useful format no matter what the exact application is. These days I see it even more than XML, and I personally find it more readable than XML as well. JSON is one of the fundamental formats used to represent data in financial systems too. In my job as a software engineer for a big bank, I use JSON to represent the properties of things like stocks, bonds, swaps, and other financial products. That format is also used to store data about said products in a database (MondoDB is built around the concept of storing data as JSON "documents").