https://steemitimages.com/DQmX2Sg8voeagqsoMS6Wn1KxdY1VQXwBFdNayMvHhhmN9UW/S50-00th.jpg

The easy answer to the question "What is Steem?" is "Imagine if Facebook and Bitcoin had a baby" which suggests combining the most innovative powerful parts of what they introduced into something new.

Facebook revolutionized social media and now there are over 2 billion users on Facebook monthly, according to Wikipedia.

Bitcoin has revolutionized money in 2009 when it was started, just a few years later it was only worth 30 cents for a Bitcoin. Today it's worth over $4,000, which is 10,000 times as much in just six years.

What would happen if you put the amazing innovation of these two into one?

I'll show you right now.

Facebook + Bitcoin = Steem!

First, to make this clear, I will need to share the basics of the best of Facebook and Bitcoin with you, if perhaps you haven't heard of one or both of them.

Facebook was started in 2003, when Mark Zuckerberg wrote a program called "Facemash." Two years later I was one of the first users relatively to join Facebook and I was really excited about it.

https://steemitimages.com/DQmcvM7uFL9Mk7QJsq3jo32tkwHPa72hfZoJpB5pToPdHL8/S50-01.jpg

Now, 12 years after I joined when it was just still a relatively new start up, Facebook has 65 billion dollars in assets.

Meanwhile, let's look at Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has revolutionized money online introducing the term cryptocurrency and shaking up financial markets around the world. Bitcoin started in 2009 and after two years it was only 30 cents for a Bitcoin.

https://steemitimages.com/DQmNuxLZmXVxZHnETb8WtNkcA9YuhB1aCLkEhHi3okqNUKo/S50-02.jpg

Today, the price of Bitcoin is $4,000+ which is a 10,000 times increase over what it was six years ago.

Doing the math on Facebook, I would guess that Facebook had similar growth from the time I joined it in 2005 to 12 years later, which is today where some estimate it's worth as much as several hundred billion dollars.

Now, what would you get if you put Facebook and Bitcoin together, had them mate and have a baby into something that introduced as much innovation as they introduced?

Here's what I think.

Steem.

https://steemitimages.com/DQmf2SHdAyrcHFk4H9Eq9MsWUJGJcvDc4D8Fp6FJ5XT7Gim/S50-04.jpg

Steem is the equivalent of a baby of Facebook and Bitcoin.

It brings the innovation in terms of the cryptocurrency that Bitcoin has and it combines that with a social media network.

I'll show you right now.

You can see right on my Steemit profile today exactly what I'm doing.

I think this is really amazing because, even though Steem is new, even though I've only been on it for three months, you can see it's basically just a social network where you can host your blog.

https://steemitimages.com/DQmUmrdrzo7WskUcK9AU3UQ6RzKefnFLmpan1Nx7EAzfnfX/S50-05.jpg

And yet, if you look down, I'm making hundreds of dollars, sometimes a little less than that, sometimes much more than that. $3,000 was the most I made on one post and this is still brand new.

Now, I've been working online for six years, I don't know anywhere else where it's this easy to start something, and even if you have an existing audience to actually turn that into money. This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen and I was one of the first Facebook users, I was in Bitcoin several years ago, and this absolutely blows my mind.

Why? Because it is simple. You sign up for SteemIt, you make an account, you start posting. Now, are you going to earn millions of dollars over the night? No.

It does however give you a chance to actually earn money from what you do on social media.

How much money?

Here's my actual accounting data.

https://steemitimages.com/DQmaPWGSVvhRC5H3Ze2f2d3DRK8F52hyxD5fzU8wyGNwxtk/S50-06.jpg

If you add up all the numbers, it adds up to $33,944.47 that I've made in the first two months on Steemit.

Now, I've reinvested almost all of that. If you look at my Steemit wallet you'll see that I've put in about $30,000. I cashed out my retirement portfolio and put it all into Steem. Today I have an account worth $61,000. I've also cashed out around $10,000 over to my Coinbase account.

https://steemitimages.com/DQmWRrzoLeFvsi5B1EZJfzfHsf3bHKLsJRs1tqXNqY2Kk89/S50-07.jpg

This is just the beginning.

I think while today the price of Steem is at $1.22, it has a chance to go up a thousand times in value in the next eight years. I'm not investing in it because I thing it might be a little interest on my money, or it's cool and it's new. I'm investing because I see this as my entire retirement plan. No social security for me, no stocks, Steemit is my retirement plan.

At the same time, this is my daily job. I can go on Steemit and just make posts every day and earn money, even if they don't earn a whole bunch it's still a lot more than nothing that I get if I post on Facebook.

In my opinion, the biggest difference in life is from zero to something and Steemit crosses that threshold with the social network. It crosses over into money and allows less censorship. I absolutely love Steemit.

Would you join me on Steemit, because while you might have missed out on Facebook and Bitcoin, I'm going to guess that you probably didn't have the chance to be an early investor in either of these within the first two years they were launched.

This you don't have to miss out on. You can even put nothing into it, just try to make an account posting. You can even put a $100 into it.

https://steemitimages.com/DQmcDTE3rLaxwNNE7ZBvq15iiouqFTkhVcokqDtLUDhF5tm/S50-08.jpg

That's why I'm here, to make an investment of a lifetime and to use the rewards from that to do some good in this life, to create a world I would like to come back to in another life. My dream is to help continue building a world that's amazing and a world where we have the chance to just do what we love every day, where we're not required to slave in some job we hate, jut to pay the bills.

That's my vision for this.

I hope this is useful for you.

I love you, you're awesome, hope you'll have a wonderful day today.

Thank you very much for reading this post which was originally filmed as the video below!

Would you join me today, by leaving a like on this video or upvote this post on Steemit?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vemC7c9Gt_U

If you found this post helpful on Steemit, would you please upvote it and follow me because you will then be able to see more posts like this in your home feed?

Love,

Jerry Banfield with edits by @gmichelbkk from the transcript by GoTranscript.

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PS: Witness votes are the most important votes we make on Steem because one vote for a witness lasts indefinitely! Would you please make a vote for jerrybanfield as a witness or set jerrybanfield as a proxy to handle all witness votes at https://steemit.com/~witnesses because when we make our votes, we feel in control of our future together? Thank you to the 516 accounts voting for me as a witness, the 197.4M VESTS assigned from users trusting me to make all witness votes by setting me as proxy, and @followbtcnews for making these .gif images!

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