As someone with very little knowledge about coding or the inner workings of blockchain technology, I find STEEM to be one of the most impressive cryptocurrencies out there. How can you resist that recommendation?
Credit where credit is due, I was inspired to write this after reading @lukestokes post Why Am I Such a Fan of DPOS Blockchains like STEEM and BitShares? He gets into a lot more of the technical aspects like DPOW vs. DPOS which I won't touch on at all.
As a layman, I'll be writing the layman's take.
No Transaction Fees
How great is this? Most cryptocurrencies out there charge a small fee to complete transactions. When a currency's network gets flooded with a volume of activity it can't handle, those fees get higher and higher. Just look at Bitcoin right now. It's become totally impractical to make small purchases given the fees demanded by the network.
So many people are complaining about Bitcoin "gouging" them right now. Instead of complaining, they should move in to STEEM.
STEEM doesn't and never will require fees. It was intentionally designed this way because everything you do on the social media sites like Steemit is a transaction. Every post, every comment and every upvote is a transaction as well as every transfer of currency. Social media sites on the STEEM blockchain would fail immediately if there was even as little as a 1 cent paywall for any given action.
Nearly Instant Transactions
There isn't much to say about this point that isn't in the title. While people are waiting hours for a Bitcoin transaction to confirm, STEEM is processing transactions in mere seconds. You want to send some money? Post a comment? Upvote a post? It will be done by the time you refresh the webpage.
Proven Utility
STEEM has proven its utility as both a currency and a blockchain supporting various social media applications.
There are many cryptocurrencies out there that are backing a project that hasn't come to fruition. STEEM came almost right out the gate with a working platform which has been active for over a year-and-a-half.
Capacity for High Transaction Volume
Take a look at this chart from blocktivity. Notice anything?
STEEM handles the second most transactions of any blockchain network, second only to Ethereum by a thin margin.
Even though it handles over a billion transactions DAILY it isn't even using 1% of its network capacity. When I hover my mouse over the meter icon it tells me that STEEM is only at 0.36% network capacity. Compare that to Ethereum which is at 62.81% while handling only 50 million more transactions per day.
Falling even further behind is Bitcoin. At #3 on the list, it's handling less than half the transactions of STEEM; only 400 million. Yet it's network is overloaded. Bitcoin is using 100% of its processing power to handle 40% of what STEEM can process while using less than 1% its network capacity.
So Why Aren't More People Using STEEM as a Currency?
Beats me.
One of the main factors could be the simple truth that Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that is known in the mainstream. Even among crypto-enthusiasts STEEM doesn't have the name recognition of more popular coins like Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple.
Maybe one day.
I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!