Blockchain-powered platform pays cryptocurrency for popular content

Steem is a social writing platform that rewards its members with cryptocurrency for creating and curating content.

User-generated content is worth billions of dollars to the media companies who harness it, but rarely are those who actually created the content rewarded. Now, Steem is a blockchain-powered social writing platform that aims to change that, by rewarding its members for creating and curating content, with cryptocurrency.

To begin, contributing writers, readers and investors create an account on the online community and get an initial USD 3 worth of Steem Power to get started. Then, they can either create content, upvote posts they like or mine cryptocurrency by validating transactions. For each of the actions, the user will be rewarded. Half of the rewards are paid as Steem Dollars to the creator and half as Steem Power to curators. Steem Dollars can be traded for USD based on the current exchange rate. Steem Power on the other hand is non-transferable and enables the contributor to continue interacting with the site.

The platform is currently in Beta and will be distributing the first round of reward on July 4. It is open source and the creators envision it being integrated into existing social media sites to drive traffic. Who else could use Steem?