Quote from: by.Szun on May 09, 2016, 09:04:25 PM

Looks interesting. Incentivizing good content is always a plus.

How do you make money off of this though? You seem to just be handing out free money, with no opportunity for your own gains. I presume you control a large share of the currency that a boost in site popularity will give you cash through a value upswing, allowing you to slowly cash out over time?

Like ripple labs, steemit the company holds the majority of the crypto token. Unlike ripple, their holding is vested, and by the blockchain rules, vested steem ( steem power) has a vesting period of 1 year. Like ripple, steem requires accounts to be funded with minimum balance of the crypto token. If the user base increases, so does the scarcity of the token, increasing its value. In addition users are encouraged to acquire and vest additional steem in their accounts, as this balance determines their voting power. Users that vest steem demonstrate a long term commitment and belief in the platform, and so naturally they should be rewarded more for their activity on the platform.

After July 4, users will be rewarded daily in a smart token, steem dollars. Steem dollars will be trade able for steem on the steem blockchain, and have no counter-party risk. The blockchain guarantees the steem dollars redeem-ability at $1 worth of steem. The white paper contains more information on how this works.