The Steem network gives new Steem units to publishers and voters every day. Steem can be exchanged either on Steem Power (SP) or Steem Backed Dollars (SPD). Steem Power is a token used to upvote content, which helps to get a revenue both for a voter (in SP) and for a publisher in (SPD) proportionate to how much Steem Power the voter has. Steem Powered Dollars represent an amount of Steem equal to 1 USD. SMD helps to protect content creators from the volatility of the Steem cryptocurrency by promising them that they’ll get a fixed amount of money, no matter how much Steem will cost when they cash out.
On July 19th, 2016, the coin was trading for $4.34 and its market cap surpassed $384 million. The volumes traded then were at $3.3 million. Even though the price fell to a low of $0.14 in the early months of 2017, the crypto surged again when the major altcoins started performing extremely well in November 2017. On December 21st, the price passed the $4 mark and the market cap went beyond $1 billion.