Let’s face it, LOLcats rule the interwebs, so it’s not surprising that one of the most ambitious blockchain projects out there is trying to take advantage of our addiction to cat videos. It’s called LBRY (pronounced library), and in simple words, is blockchain-powered YouTube.
If you are reading this post, it's most likely because you are an active member of the Steemit community, have an understanding of how Steemit works and thus enjoy its benefits.
Both Steemit and LBRY are based on the blockchain, meaning there is no middlemen between content creators and users. Neither company will sell your personal data, there won’t be ads, and users will be free to share their content without censorship.
Below is a parallel comparison for you to gain a better understanding of these two projects.
| . | ||
|---|---|---|
| Motto | Come for the rewards. Stay for the community | Watch, read, and play in a decentralized digital library controlled by the community |
| What is it? | Steemit is a social network and content rewards platform that makes the crowd the beneficiaries of the attention economy. The crowd reward the crowd for their content. Users can post anything they want, whether it be phrases, quotes, blogs, anecdotes, photos, videos, memes, songs, etc. | LBRY is 1) a vast digital library of video, music, ebooks, etc. available on all of your devices; 2) a new protocol that allows artists to upload their content to a network of hosts; and 3) a company which is developing the LBRY app to allow users to easily interact with the protocol |
| Cryptocoin | $STEEM | LBRY Credits ($LBC) |
| Trading stats | Circulating supply: 234,281,025 STEEM | Circulating supply: 68,524,524 $LBC |
| Team | Ned Scott, Founder and CEO | Jeremy Kauffman, Founder and CEO |
| Competitors | Reddit, the 7th most popular website globally (source) | YouTube, the 2nd most popular website globally (source) |
| Any publicity is good publicity (right?) | A hacker attack in July 2016 resulted in the loss of US$85,000 worth of SBD/STEEM | LBRY copied 20,000 lectures from UC Berkeley’s YouTube channel before they were deleted |