Steemit explained for beginners

So what is steemit many of you ask?

Well first of all to be reading this I guess you are already a member on steemit (hope the verification didn't take too long 😆).

So there has been a lot of fuss recently over the web about steemit which is more than likely the future to all social media platforms. I mean what other social media platform pays you to post? None, I know right!

Now at first it does all seem a little confusing with the platform being called steemit, the currency being steem and steem power and steem dollars etc. In this post I will hopefully be able to give you guys a bit of a better understanding!

So first off I will explain what steem is- STEEM is the type of cryptocurrency used to power the whole system. It is effectively the foundation that will help you build steem dollars and steem power which I will explain later. You can buy and sell steem however if you're not looking to cash in on it you won't need to deal directly with steem.

STEEM DOLLARS So steem dollars are the currency of the steemit platform also known as SMD. This is what is being sent in a transaction effectively when you upvote someone's post, depending on your steemit ranking will depend on how much your upvote is worth. The reason behind it being called a steem dollar is because it represents a worth against the USD depending on the exchange rate at that current time frame.

Steem dollars can only be used in the steemit platform, in order to use outside of the platform you will have to convert your steem dollars into steem, bitcoin or USD. (That's the fun part).

STEEM POWER Also know as SP, what is steem power? Basically it symbolises how much influence you have on the steemit platform as an individual. If you have a lot of SP your upvotes will be worth more when you upvote a post that you like. You will basically be rewarding the author with more than someone with a low SP.

POWERING UP So powering up in one sentence is basically getting more SP from either buying it with steem or by getting upvotes on your posts.

POWERING DOWN Powering down is also something you will probably hear from time to time when using steemit and what people mean by this is that you power down when you liquidate your SP into steem. Powering down is best for if you are looking for a long term investment as it can take up to 2 years.

Hopefully that will give you all an idea into the steemit platform and will help you move forward with your posts and SP etc.

Any questions feel free to ask in the comment.

Sam Smith