Steemit for Dummies: How Steemit works and why it's not a scam.

Hey, everybody! I will this my first post on Steemit to explain how I got here and what I know so far! Thanks ;)

It started as a regular day at the office

It was the rainiest day I have seen in ages and I was getting really bored with my office work. So, guess what? I did what everybody does when they get bored these days: I started scrolling on Facebook. At some point, this post. It did sound a bit like a clickbait, but I knew the page and it was a trusted one.

"How this blog makes over $1000 a day?"

The above was the name of the post. I have to admit that it does sound a lot too good to be true, but then I started documenting myself, reading reviews here and there. So I will try to explain your questions as well as I can.

Is Steemit a scam?

It may look like Steemit is a big scam. Like many big scams on the internet. But scams usually involve investing money and losing them. Pretty much like that time when you invested in stock market without having any idea how stock market works. THAT was a scam. And I'm sorry if you were a victim.

But with Steemit, all you have to invest is your time and creativity.

So how do you win your money?

Short answer: Cryptocurrency. I know it sounds complicated and technical, but here me out. I will try to make it simple. The most popular example of cryptocurrency is Bitcoin.

You can think of Bitcoin as a normal currency, except its value is dictated strictly by transactions. A transaction is defined as the process of buying or selling coins.

Now, Bitcoin transactions work on a blockchain and what this blockchain does is preventing a bitcoin from being spent more than once. Which means, everytime someone spends a Bitcoin, everyone else in the network know about it.

Just as gold, a cryptocurrency can be discovered by mining. And everytime someone mines a Bitcoin, there are less Bitcoins to be found. But the process of mining does not involve shovels as you would expect, but powerful computers.

Everytime a transaction takes place, the process of mining comes in to validate it and put the record into the block chain. Also, at the time, the servers generate a new amount of currency, which is awarded as a transaction fee to the winning miner. But that's a different story.

STEEMIT Money

As I explained ealier, STEEMIT is a cryptocurrency, but unlike Bitcoins, the main way to earn it posting content on Steemit.com.

But how, you ask? Well, Steemit is a social network. And everytime you bring valuable content to the network, Steemit rewards you with STEEM. How much Steem you get is up to how good your content is and how appreciated.

The more people like your content, the more STEEM is generated by the network. And the network gives you about 50% of the money generated by you articles. Simple, right? Also, keep in mind that articles are not the only way get rewarded. You also get rewarded for comments, if you get enough likes for them.

How to turn STEEMIT into real money?

Well, STEEMIT, as explained above, is a currency and it can be exchanged. And this is pretty simple, but it needs to be done in 2 steps:

1. Exchange your STEEM to BTC, which you can do here --> https://blocktrades.us/

2. Exchange your BTC to USD, which can be done here --> https://btc-e.com/exchange/btc_usd

As I write these, the value of 1 STEEM is about $1.74, but it can change at any time.