Hey look, it's me!

Man, that's a strange feeling browsing through a random thread and seeing a picture of my own mug staring back at me. Hehehe.

As for where the new Steem Power comes from, that's explained in the white paper as part of securing the blockchain via the process of mining. As miners are rewarded with STEEM for adding new blocks to the ledger, Steem Power is also created at a 9:1 ratio which is then distributed to the content creators and curators in the system. As to what gives STEEM or Steem Power any monetary value, that I'm exploring in the #bitcoinpizza challenge if you want to join along.