Dear Rafe,
I became aware of you through your recent article in HuffPost. Thanks for being the only investor with whom I closely agree with: Dash, Steem and Ethereum (well, after you research EOS, you might be changing).
As far as you giving a TED Talk on Steem, there are a few very important things to include, and they go back to why Steem was invented and the structure which dominates the system.
Steem is a Delegated Proof of Stake system which was invented by @dan Dan Larimer. I asked him recently if he invented this DPOS new system and he confirmed that. It's a refinement of the wasteful Bitcoin mining POW model. Now, I'm only talking about the genesis ideas for DPOS. Ned Scott and Dan Larimer co-founded Steemit, and Ned is still the CEO, running operations. Dan has moved to CTO of EOS, which is another DPOS system.
This means that Delegated Proof of Stake did not exist before him. Most people are not aware that he is the inventor of this. If you don't understand DPOS (Delegated Proof of Stake) please read from Dan's original blog that defines it: https://bytemaster.github.io/article/2015/01/07/The-Most-Decentralized-Proof-of-Stake-System/
In fact, Dan's blog, Bytemaster Blog contains the many beautiful idea gems that gave birth to Bitshares, Steem and EOS (a blockchain operating system). All of these systems can be considered refinements of the previous. EOS is designed so that people can develop applications on top of it.
The important thing to realize about Steem is that it is a Delegated Proof of Stake system in which 20 Witnesses run the blockchain. These witnesses are chose by us, the community. If a Witness is acting bad, we remove our vote. Many Witnesses have come and gone, and the more good work you do, in the eyes of those who vote (and who have high SP), the more likely you will be chosen as a Witness. If you want to understand how the meritocracy aspect has played out, look no further than @timcliff who started out as just a very impassioned user. He was already a software dev, but he was not a Witness. He ended up being the one who communicated between the community and the devs. It took him a long time to become a Witness, but because he was dedicated to Steem community, he rose up in the ranks. Now he's way up there.
Also, you must also realize that Steem is closer to a virtual world. Departments have popped up that users created, and @steemcleaners and @spaminator are examples. We have @sherlockholmes who is a detective in here, investigated scams, fraud and other accounts which are doing underhanded things.
There are a vast number of other platforms like Steemit, which are all powered by the Steem blockchain. Steemit is only one. There is busy.org, DTube (YouTube competitor), eSteem (mobile app), ChainBB, and too many others to list. There's an entire Steem Wikipedia which catalogs the entire history of Steem.
In fact, the amount of information is vast beyond anyone's grasp of it. But I will link you to Steem.Center, because it contains all the definitions of everything Steem related.
Feel free to reach out to me if you have some more specific questions. I am on Steemit Chat....also on Skype as haizarahaizara
@stellabelle I am especially grateful for all of your ideas, pointers and encouragement... a few followup questions:
Why do people want to become Steem Witnesses and what are the upsides and downsides?
I notice on the Whales list a couple of exchanges like polo and bittrex appear. Are these the actual exchanges? How do we know? What are we to make of the amount of currency they hold?
Are there any people who are making a solid living just through Steemit?
(these are open questions of course to anyone who wants to answer)
Yes. I and my friend @ogochukwu from Nigeria, this platform has been of great help. He recently bought a Hp laptop from money gotten from Steemit. and so many other like us.
you can get more info about your questions if you check out steemit white paper. Its a 44 page presentation about steemit. you are welcome.
@arizonawise