*5% of the liquid Steem reward will be use to advertise this post on Facebook and possibly other websites.*

[Youtube audio for the current article](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAqFQ5eNkXM)

https://i.imgur.com/OlBbp4m.jpg

This article makes it as easy as possible for people to get the big picture of why Steem is so revolutionary and it provides all the details for a thorough investigation of its claims.   

# Steem: Real-Time Global Consensus! 

Steem currently give the consensus opinion of thousands of its users every day on any topics they choose. In the future it could be the consensus opinion of millions of people, possibly billions. This large scale real-time tamperproof consensus is a technological first. 

# Public Sentiment Is Everything

> *In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently he who molds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.* Abraham Lincoln 

Public sentiment could easily be substituted with consensus opinion here.

It is thus interesting to ask: “*How would this Steem consensus of many millions possibly billions people compare to the power of a commander in chief or the power of any other institution and how would it affect the power structure of society?*” These are interesting questions indeed to which Steem might soon be able provide answers. 

https://youtu.be/oeIPVtpWyIs

# The Basics 

Steemit is a window to a social network named Steem where users are rewarded with shares of the company named Steem, whenever they make a popular post or vote on one.  

Steem shareholders are thus incentivized to post about the most relevant things they can come up with and vote on the posts they think are the most relevant. 

This posting and voting reveal the real-time consensus opinion of Steem's shareholders. 

Steemit.com doesn’t require any credit card. Anyone can join in less than 2 minutes. They can begin to post, vote and earn money as soon as they have joined.

# Incentivize Voting And Posting 

Each vote carries a different weight. The weight is determined by the numbers of shares each voter owns and also how many votes each users has cast during the last few minutes to 5 days. 

The more weight a post receives, the more shares the poster will receive as a reward for their post. The shares are sent around 24 hours after making a post and a second and final payout is made after 30 days. 

Also the more weight a post receives the higher it goes on the front-page of Steemit.com resulting in greater visibility. 

Links with more details are provided at the bottom of this article. 

On Steemit, the more beneficial someone is according to the consensus opinion, the greater are his rewards and visibility, kick starting a virtuous cycle of beneficial actions and growing influence. 

https://i.imgur.com/orDprBE.jpg

# Ned Scott Steemit’s CEO On Steemit Mass Adoption: 

> *[It’s a paradigm shift]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FNALkes74I) [Steem], it’s now just a matter of getting people to kind of wake up, you know, we need to continue to enhance our site Steemit.com… but after that it’s really just a matter of having people to wake up and say I’ve been using this social network, [Facebook, Reddit etc.…] that doesn’t bring any value back to me, I’m going to this site, kind of mindlessly, I’m spending so much time here. What if I could do the same thing and actually be rewarded for it [monetarily that is] and has these networks like Steem and the applications on top like Steemit becomes bigger and more popular and have more and more of a network effect, you’ll have the social benefit too and we’ll get to a point where it’s a no brainer and people are waking up to it.* 

If Steem catches on, which seems like it is set to, it really seems the whole power structure of human society could give rise to a much fairer type of governance, a decentralized governance.

https://i.imgur.com/SiAIkzp.png

# Dan Larimer CTO Of Steem

>*The goal of decentralized governance is to reach a “consensus opinion” on everything.*

# Steem: A Monetary System And Social Network

Steem is a social network but just like Bitcoin, Steem is also a cryptocurrency. 

Steem are the shares/cryptocurrency posters and voters get rewarded with. These shares can be exchanged for money.  

As with all cryptocurrencies, Steem is also its own decentralized monetary system which doesn’t need any form of centralized authority to process its financial exchanges.

# Bitcoin: Magical Internet Money

Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency that ever existed. 1 Bitcoin in January 2011 was worth around 50 cents and is now worth more than 650$. 

To put this into perspective, 100$ of Bitcoin in January 2011 is worth more than 120,000$ today.  

Didn’t we all have at least 100$ to spare that we could have invested in Bitcoin? 

Bitcoin’s market cap is in the top 500 public company worldwide and the total market cap of all cryptocurrencies combined would place in the [321th place of the S&P 500](https://cryptolization.com/), which is the market index of the 500 most important public companies of the United States. 

All of this in less than 8 years as Bitcoin was introduced on January 3 2009. 

[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/t4jHDip.png">]( https://www.facebook.com/Guillaumecardinal8/posts/962141133931686)
*Results of my previous ad*

# Steem: Introduced April 2016

I learned about it in May 2016, through [this website](http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/views/all/#BTC) where almost all existing cryptocurrencies are listed. (400+) I used to go there daily and look at the new top cryptocurrencies. That’s where I first learn about Steem. 

I knew about its main inventor Dan Larimer. I really love Bitshares, one of its previous cryptocurrency. He had also previously blown my mind with [this quote](https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@teamsteem/dan-larimer-said-one-of-the-most-inspiring-thing-ive-ever-heard). Those were 2 of the reasons why I felt the need to investigate Steem as soon as I learned about it.

# Future Opportunities

As shown above, the financial opportunities from cryptocurrencies are very real and enticing. As for Steem its potential to better the world seems even more profound and intriguing.  

# More Detailed Explanation 

To anyone who would love to learn more about Steem, I would recommend reading my article [Decentralized Governance]( https://steemit.com/teamsteem/@teamsteem/bernie-sanders-just-recently-approved-my-witness-how-will-steemit-consensus-opinion-of-millions-possibly-billions-of-people), more precisely these 4 paragraphs. 

- Is Steemit Consensus Bias?
- Desire Of A Non Violent Society
- How Could Steem Bring About A Non Violent Society?  
- To Learn More About Steem 

My paragraph “To Learn More About Steem” links to my article named “A Bit About Steemit” which is kind of a summary of the Steem Whitepaper which is the official Steem documentation and is linked at the very bottom of this post. 

The Steem Whitepaper is not up-to-date and “A Bit About Steemit” also has some dated information but all in all those 2 documents are still very much worth the read.  ([These are the new numbers which should be swap in my article and the Steem Whitepaper](https://steemit.com/steem/@steemitblog/final-review-of-steem-economic-changes))

Steemit successful user @jacor once said about this article:
https://i.imgur.com/Co0IKry.png

There’s also a Steem FAQ which is up-to-date and which I would recommend reading before reading the Whitepaper.    

I hope I succeeded in fairly expressing some of the potential Steem has and the opportunities it offers.

For any further inquiries feel free to contact me here: https://steemit.chat/direct/teamsteem

[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/B1QSDeU.png">](https://steemit.com/@teamsteem)

# Translation 

The current article is chapter 3 of my book entitled The Ultimate Steem Book which I’m publishing here on Steemit chapter by chapter. 

@pickoum just sent me a French translation of Chapter 2 and I’ll be publishing it soon. 
 
To encourage translations of any Steem article please consider voting for them if you enjoyed the original version.  

N.B. I wouldn’t have said the same if it was a Klingon translation. 

I invite people to contact me before beginning to translate any of my articles. 

I will publish the translations and 95% of the liquid Steem will be given to the translator and 5% for advertising it on Facebook or other websites. 

## End Notes

5% of the liquid reward from this post will go to @jaybird for his awesome songs [#1](https://steemit.com/openmic/@jaybird/openmic-night-contest-original-song-goodbye-jaybird) [#2](https://steemit.com/openmic/@jaybird/open-mic-week-3-original-song-keep-on-driving-jaybird)

# Voting For My Witness

If you enjoy what I do and would love to help please support my witness! 

## [In The Box, At The Bottom Of This Page, Type: Teamsteem Then Click Vote! ](https://steemit.com/~witnesses)

# The Ultimate Steem Book Previous Chapters

### - [Introduction To The Ultimate Steem Book](https://steemit.com/money/@teamsteem/the-ultimate-steem-book-i-m-writing-a-book-and-i-ll-publish-it-chapter-by-chapter-on-steem-9-min-read) / [Audio Version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ved4ukqZRrk) (Youtube)
### - [Chapter 1 - My Steem Witness Application](https://steemit.com/witness-category/@teamsteem/on-steem-everybody-wins-and-here-s-you-chance-to-join)
### - [Chapter 2 - Decentralized Governance]( https://steemit.com/teamsteem/@teamsteem/bernie-sanders-just-recently-approved-my-witness-how-will-steemit-consensus-opinion-of-millions-possibly-billions-of-people) / [Audio Version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqYMp8VIkRk) (Youtube)


## Steem Whitepaper

- [Text](https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf)
- [Audio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-MXy1F42Xo) (Youtube: 1h15m)