Digital currency Steem soars to more than US$150 million in value in 2 weeks

in #steem8 years ago

 

NEW YORK: Steem, the digital currency behind the new  social media website Steemit, soared more than 1,000 percent in value on  Tuesday to over US$150 million, two weeks after it first paid people  who posted on its website, according to coinmarketcap.com.Steemit  essentially is a website that rewards or pays users who post content  that gets multiple thumbs up from the site's participants. The reward  given is the steem currency. Content on the site is not limited to  digital currencies and users have posted varied topics from lasagna to a  trip to North Africa."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 US$1.75, equivalent to a market  cap of US$151.8 million. That is the value of the 81.6 million steems in  circulation. On July 4, when Steemit first paid users with steem for  their content, the currency's value  was only US$13 million, according  to Scott.Steem is the fifth-largest digital currency in terms of market cap. 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. They can use their bitcoins to pay for services or goods or  hold them as an investment.Steemit is similar to social media  website Reddit and Facebook in the way it operates. Unlike the two,  however, Steemit is powered by blockchain, the underlying technology  that anchors digital currencies such as bitcoin.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. "And when they experienced that first payout  on July 4, they bought something for their mother, they paid debt. And  it suddenly felt real to everyone."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.Scott said the company had a "superangel" investor that  helped it get off the ground last February. It will use this momentum to  raise funds from institutional investors.(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

- Reuters 

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/technology/digital-currency-steemit/2952622.html