Toval Crypto Investor Series Vol 1 - Steem, The Hidden Gem
The advent of internet brought about citizen journalism. From anywhere we are, we can make our voices be heard through social media and blogging. Governments has been toppled, tyranny regimes overthrown. But lately the powers that be has laid siege on this freedom of human right of expression by attacking the centralized internet giants who unfortunately are custodians of our digital content. We have also been betrayed by the internet giants themselves with their secret sale of our digital footprints to advertising agencies for billions of dollars without giving the original content creators a single cent of this huge proceeds. The recent case of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica depicts abuse of user private data by an internet giant for profit gains . However lately, nascent blockchain technology is wrestling power from the internet giants and giving it back to original owners - content creators. One of such blockchain technology is Steem.
What is Steem
Steem is a blockchain-based rewards platform for publishers to monetize content and grow community. Gone are the days that users will be creating contents without commensurate compensation on dominant internet platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others.
On Steem blockchain, every content is rewarded accordingly with Steem token which the user can exchange for Bitcoin or Ethereum. With its proprietary 'Proof of Brain' algorithm the Steem blockchain rewards content creators and curators on the platform because of the value they bring to the platform.
Tokenomics
According to Steem website, since inception $22.7M has been paid to content contributors and 334.25K user accounts created. As at the time of writing, the statistics of Steem are as below
Image: Coinmarketcap.com
With token supply of 255,802,533 and price of $1.86, the market capitalization of Steem is valued at $474,761,827. This value is based on the current user metrics of two major Dapps (Distributed Application) - Steemit and Dtube on the blockchain.
Steemit is a blogging platform just like Blogger but unlike Blogger where bloggers monetize via ads, Steemit bloggers are paid from the blockchain reward pool for every content they uploaded on the platform. Payment are also meted out to users that read and upvote any article on the platform. I personally believe that the current users of Steem blockchain are early adopters and as the network effect of Steemit and Dtube attracts more users to the blockchain, the token value of Steem will skyrocket.
Image: Morningstar.com
Based on the Facebook market capitalization of $462.12Bn, should Steemit and Dtube (a version of Youtube that pays video creators) manage to reach at least a valuation $200Bn in near future that will put the price of Steem at $781.66. Thus an investment of $1000 in Steem token today will potentially worth $451,826 as the market capitalization grow to $200Bn