Steemit for Dummies (The Best Way to Get Started Right Now)

There's a lot of hype around cryptocurrencies lately. I personally have heard about bitcoin for a few years now but I had no idea what it was, I had the notion of course that it was some kind of digital currency that had been developed but I had no interest in it because I didn't think it really had anything to do with me.

I had no interest in this matter but I have always tried to have alternate source of income from online jobs, things like YouTube Adsense for websites or Freelancer and Fiverr (as an illustrator) are places where I generate extra income and like must of us here on Steemit, generating additional income by sharing content that we are probably sharing somewhere else without any type of rewards in exchange sounds like a good deal. But for many people (specially newbies like me), these new concepts of Cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Steem, Steem Power, Steem dollar, can sound a little disorienting when we have no background on this matters.

As with every new endeavor I take, I like to investigate and get to know the platform that I'm going to be investing my time on. Time is something that you cannot get back so knowing your battle field will definitely benefit you from the start, that's why I decided to learn about cryptocurrency since that's pretty much the foundation of this site.

Regular money and electronic money.

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All of us I asume, know the concept of "currencies" you now the usual Money, Cash, Credit, debit. We have been exposed to it for centuries. Exchanging goods for other goods or services is a practice that is already rooted in ourselves as part of our society and the world we live in. We now live in an era where the Internet has connected us more than ever and in the world of economics that has shown in the form of electronic transfers, exchanges and transactions that are now possible because of that interconnected network of people sharing information together.

Electronic money is basically the same money that you have but it is not in your pocket but in possession of the bank and they then keep track of what you have and how much you're spending so they can literally keep track of your transactions so you know how much you have left for spending.

Double spending is something that could happen when using credit cards for example when you process two transactions at the same time, that money is requested to the bank and the system that is used may fail to recognize the transactions and you may end up spending the same money twice. That sounds nice for you but the bank doesn't want that neither does the economy, however banks have invested in technology that prevents that. But that's too much talking for something you already know let's talk Crypto, let's talk Bitcoin.

Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin

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There's a lot of good articles here on Steemit and online about Crypto, Bitcoin and Steem but I personally think is hard to digest for the people that are not into this cryptocurrency world, like myself so I'll give my personal explanation in simple words that anyone can understand.

Cryptocurrency

Is a form of digital money that uses cryptography (a forme of difficult code), as a form of currency so you can perform normal transactions. I is not based upon some physical good like gold but based on its own, so basically it's worth nothing. But its usability and convenience of use and difficulty to be faked or replicated because of this cryptography gives it value and that's what it's worth.

Bitcoin

It's the first decentralized digital money. Meaning that no government or bank controls the production or value of this money. It was invented by a guy (or group) called Satoshi Nakamoto.

Blockchain

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As I said before bitcoin is decentralized, nobody controls its production but someone has to know who spends what and who has what otherwise everyone would be rich in bitcoin or something. Now this is obtained by having someone verify the transactions in this case everyone verifies the transactions so if some one tries to fake some bitcoins his records of all transactions wont match the records of the rest of the network, hundreds and thousands of people connected agreeing that John Doe has $100.00 but John says he has $1000.00 too bad John your records are wrong. So basically that's how the transactions are so smooth.

Steem Dollar

Is another form of cryptocurrency that also works on a block chain but instead of mining you get rewards for creating and curating content which you can then exchange for bitcoins and trade them for actual physical money (Dollars, Euros you choose)

Where does the money come from?

Attention. <-- You see how Facebook, Tweeter and other social media sites make money (aside from ads). They have a value in the market for the attention and hype there is around them. So here it's the same but instead of money generated being given to the owners and shareholders of those sites it's given to us, users. So we are the shareholders of Steemit and we get the money. How much you get depends on how much you contribute to the site. By posting great contend and curating (upvoting content that you like).

if you want to know much on how Steemit work and stuff you can find more info here:

https://steemit.com/welcome

and here:
https://steemit.com/faq.html

Those are the two first things I read from start to finish to get to understand the site and how to find my place here.