I find myself explaining the difference between the steemit platform and the steem network quit a bit here on steemit so i thought I'd write a quick post explaining a few things to the people who aren't all that familiar with the difference between steem and steemit.
Now, forgive me if I'm not spot on, it has been 5 months since I've read the steem white paper and to be honest I've read at least 100 white papers since so I hope I'm not getting anything confused. But this should give u a better idea of the steem platform if nothing else. Anyone please feel free to correct me on any mistakes I might have made in this article.
Here we go..
Steem and steemit are two totally different things! Steemit is really just the tip of the iceburg but it's all that most of us here on the platform see. I know many people are under the impression that the steem token only exist because of steemit, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Steemit is built on the steem network and was actually named after steem. Steem it. As in post it. Write - it. Curate - it.. steem - it.. which became steemit..
Steemit is built on top of the steem network. The steem network is a platform for other social media apps to be built on. Its going to serve as a host to power other cryptocurrencies called Smart Media Tokens (SMT's). Much like erc20 tokens for etherium there will be many different tokens riding on the steem network making it very large and extremely valuable!. But unlike etherium, steem is already set up to handle those transactions whereas etherium constantly has issues with transaction speed everytime a new popular coin comes out!
As the steemit platform grows it's teaching people they can now get paid for their content online! This is bringing many new users to steemit daily. When new people come to steemit they invest their own money into steemit which helps the steem crypto price grow and in return makes us all more money :)
With steemit we get payed for our content, instead of media giants like youtube taking most of the pie and leaving us the crumbs for all of our hard work.. Or even worse like fb who doesnt even give you the crumbs, infact they also sell your personal information for even more profit! Not with steemit tho!
Sorry about the rant, back to my point.
It is to my understanding that steemit is kind of like a test net for the steem network. They needed a way to prove they could successfully pay people for content with cryptocurrency while simultaneously having the chance to work out all kinds of bugs on the network. With steemit they had a chance to do just that for quite a long period of time before allowing other tokens to come on board.
Most of you take the pay system on steemit for granted, what you don't understand is that it is nearly (if not) the fastest payment system on blockchain! Well as far as i know at least.. Either way it makes bitcoin, etherium and even litecoin look stupid slow! Average time for a transfer is 3 seconds or less on the steem network! No other network comes close to that. Steem is an amazing network and it is going to be a giant sooner than most would think.
Now that the steem team has decided to finally allow other smt's to come to the platform, the steem token price should really start to take off soon.
Appics just had their ico. This is the first SMT token that will ride on the steem network. There will be many more to follow!
So if you are worried that steemit might fail, don't be! It really doesn't matter to be honest. The Steem network can carry on just fine without it and your steem tokens will continue to make gains either way. Don't get me wrong, I do think steemit will continue on to become a giant in social media industry and it will be amazing! I just know it worries some people that steemit might not make it and their steem will become worthless, which couldn't be further from the truth. This is why I refuse to spend any of my steem right now at $6, i think it will be worth atleast $100 per token by the end of this year. Probably way more to be honest though! :)
Anyhow, I just wanted to inform people about how things really are with the steem/steemit. So now you can drop the link from this article whenever people are confused about steem and the steemit platform.
"Peace, love and all that hippie shit"
