Digital currency Steem soars to more than $150 mln in value in 2 weeks - https://www.yahoo.com/news/digital-currency-steemit-soars-more-201741364.html

(In headline, corrects name of currency to Steem from Steemit, and adds missing word)
By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK, July 12 (Reuters) - Steem, the digital currency behind the new social media website Steemit, soared more than 1,000 percent in value on Tuesday to over $150 million, two weeks after it first paid people who posted on its website, according to coinmarketcap.com.
The reward given is the steem currency.
"It's basically an incentivized social media platform," said Steemit's chief executive, Ned Scott, in an interview.
The steem currency's price on Tuesday was $1.75, equivalent to a market cap of $151.8 million.
Coinmarket cap.com tracks a total of 657 digital currencies.
Digital currencies have gained broad appeal among investors as a mechanism to transfer assets without a third party or clearing agency.
Users who get the steem currency can then exchange it for bitcoins within the platform.
Steemit is similar to social media website Reddit and Facebook in the way it operates.
The new social media website was launched on an experimental basis without the rewards on May 4.
"There were many, many people looking at this project, several hundreds of users per day," said Scott.
Steems are created solely by the platform's blockchain, whereas bitcoin is generated through a mining process where a miner tries to solve a set of complex mathematical problems.
It will use this momentum to raise funds from institutional investors.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)