Just take some time to look through the above posts and you should get the idea. .. Yes, every account can potentially send sMerits and receive Merits, but logically:
-   An Account can only send sMerits if it has sMerits to send

-   An account receives Merits (and therefore also sMerits to send at a ratio of2:1 vs received Merits) it they post something that is considered interesting to another person with available sMerits.

Newbie accounts start-off with 0 sMerits, so they need to earn at least 2 Merits before being able to send 1 sMerit to another person.