CoinReport A Conversation with Ned Scott, CEO of Steemit ...

Along with BitShares founder Dan Larimer, Ned Scott leads Steemit, a blockchain-powered startup that rewards content creators and consumers with cryptocurrency for sharing and upvoting quality content on a dedicated social media platform.

The New York-based firm uses a new cryptocurrency called Steem to reward users who post content such as images, articles and commentary, as well as users who source and upvote popular content. The earlier a user upvotes content that becomes popular, the more the user is rewarded.

Steemit pays users half with “Steem Power,” a vesting currency that fuels voting power, and half with Steem Dollars, which can be exchanged for U.S. Dollars.

CoinReport spoke with Scott, the company’s CEO, via e-mail to learn more about the genesis of Steemit, how the platform works and his interest in cryptocurrency.

The following conversation has been edited slightly for clarity.

CoinReport: What prompted you and Dan to create Steemit? How did you two come together to found the company?
Steemit rewards social media content creators with cryptocurrency

Steemit CEO Ned Scott

Ned Scott: Dan and I are similar in that we are motivated by the idea that we can improve the way of life for others. The state of Internet communities is imperfect – among the sometimes great content, there are also trolls, less than helpful comments and poor dialogue – so there was definitely a problem to solve there in the context of social media. However, when the idea of Steem and Steemit really began to form we had been exploring several different blockchain-based business models. We were looking at micro insurance on the blockchain and a few other ideas, but ultimately, we kept coming back to the idea that the most useful and powerful thing to leverage around a cryptocurrency is a community. Steem was born out of ideas about insurance and mutual aid: it was the idea that people would be able to help each other peer-to-peer if they were struggling to solve problems or needed assistance. It quickly grew into a much larger vision and Steemit was born as a place where individuals get rewarded by a community for posting and voting on content. That was back in January of this year.

I learned of Dan about two and a half years ago, which was about eight months after I stumbled upon Bitcoin. I had been down the rabbit hole learning Bitcoin when I came across Dan’s work on the Bitshares project, and from there, blockchain really seemed to take up all of my time. In mid-2015, I began moonlighting for Dan, bringing his technology to different firms in New York. When 2016 arrived, I made my first trip to meet Dan in person and we had a good match in personalities. The ideas for Steem had just started forming and from there we put a real business plan together and co-founded Steemit