Ever since joining this community two months ago, I've been accumulating Steem Power by posting, voting, and commenting on all sorts of things. It took me a long time to understand this. There are a lot of posts here on various explanations, I want to try to write down everything I could find on the subject and try to help better understand it.

Steemit FAQ In this link: https://steemit.com/faq.html#What_are_Steem_witnesses

Voting Power

As you should already know you can vote on people's posts if you like them.
For example, if you have 100% voting power, and upvote a post with 100% weight, then you will cost 0.5% voting power of you.

Steem Power is basically Steem that is locked in a vesting fund for 3 months. Users can use steem power to upvote content and get curating rewards.

Stop Voting for each post you read and let your Steem "Voting Power" build up to 100 %.
You start with 100%"Voting Power". If you make a vote of 100%. For example, whales and dolphins with more capital can choose to do 1% (of that 2%), you will use up 2% of your "Voting Power". Each day you regenerate 20% "Voting Power".

You have to remember, The lower your "Voting Power" is, the less weight your vote carry so the lower the reward.

To see your current vote power enter this site: SteemWorld.org Built by Hive account@steemchiller.
(Add your Steemit User Name to the end of the address).

You will see something that looks like this:

Another great tool, calculate your voting power, it is developed by

Hive account@penguinpablo.
You need to input the Steem Power, next to the Voting Power percentage and the Vote Weight. Here are the links: steemnow.com and steemnow.com/upvotecalc

Do note that sometimes different websites can report slightly different numbers

Hive account@rickyjrx wrote an excellent post Steemit 101, on upvotes and how to use them.
Go read this post, you'll learn a lot of important things from it.

Hive account@donkeypong wrote a very serious guide that includes everything, Here is the Steemit 101: https://steemit.com/steemit/@donkeypong/announcement-steemit-101-e-book-released-for-free-part-1 - If you prefer a PDF copy, you can find it here: http://docdro.id/ZKd07nA

This is Part 2 of the Steemit e-book: https://steemit.com/steemit/@donkeypong/announcement-steemit-101-e-book-released-for-free-part-2

Witness Voting

One of the main jobs that Witnesses perform, is to keep the Steem blockchain running in a timely fashion. Witnesses are guardians of the blockchain!

Witnesses are generally indicated that they trust community members, contribute positively to Steem and Steemit in many ways, and experienced in cryptocurrency networks and software.
Witnesses are expected to maintain a brake that produces STEEM running 24/7.
They are also expected to provide a continuous price update of the value of STEEM tokens in dollars, set the minimum STEEM POWER deposit to create an account, set the APR% for the Siam rate interest, and in the future may set additional network variables.

Witnesses are an additional incentive to be committed to the long-term and also to contribute to cremation.
Witnesses are rewarded for these services, features and of course running their node by getting activated by 1 STEEM for each block they produce, By paying in STEEM POWER.

You can see the current list of top 50 witnesses HERE, And the top 100 witnesses HERE
You can vote for a maximum of 30 witnesses. just type the witnesses user name in the box below and hit the vote button You will see something that looks like this:

You can also see Witness Updates in the category thread: https://steemit.com/created/witness-category

If you're not sure what a witness vote is, or why it's important, read this post By Hive account@lukestokes .
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lukestokes/steemit-is-free-but-your-witness-vote-determines-its-future

Steem (STEEM) price, charts, market cap, and other metrics

Here you can see where most of the Steem is currently traded

If you ask why the price is down today, it will not only stam but the entire market.
I think that the coins are pegged to bitcoin, when the bitcoin price drops, all the other currencies go with it. We are looking at 20% for a good share of them. It's not nice but again, it happens in this volatile market. Every day you do the same amount of stalk being given out and if the price is going to back up you do the same amount you do anyway.

For a complete Steem Report enter here

There also exists other ways to convert Steem to Bitcoin via Blocktrades.us or Blockpay.
Steem is liquid and can be bought in an exchange and converted into steem dollars or steem power.