Can I earn money on Steemit? How?
You can earn money various ways on Steemit:
Blogging - By sharing your original and unique posts, you can get upvotes by community members. Depending on the upvotes you receive, you will get a portion of that day’s total payout.
Commenting - Not everyone has the desire to blog. But that's just fine, because there are plenty of rewards to be had by leaving comments and interacting with other users.
Curating - If you own some Steem Power, discover a post, and upvote it before it becomes popular, you'll receive a curation reward (assuming the curation award is at least 0.001 Steem Power).
Investing - If you believe Steem tokens will increase in value, you may purchase STEEM. You have the option to "Power Up" your STEEM to turn it into Steem Power.
See: What is the difference between STEEM, Steem Power, and Steem Dollars?
How can I invest in Steemit?
For clarity, you would be investing in Steem the system, not Steemit the private company.
You can invest by purchasing STEEM or Steem Power.
Purchasing STEEM is similar to buying shares of a company.
Purchasing Steem Power (SP) is similar to buying restricted shares of a company.
You can also invest your time by commenting, curating and posting.
When you invest your time into the platform, you'll receive upvotes, and with the upvotes a proportionate amount of the newly-created STEEM.
See: What are STEEM, Steem Power, and Steem Dollars?
What are STEEM, Steem Power, and Steem Dollars?
There are three types of tokens within the Steem Ecosystem, each playing a unique role:
STEEM - STEEM represents ownership of the Steem blockchain. It can be sold on an exchange or transferred to another user at any time. The drawback to STEEM is that it doesn't give you any voting rights.
Steem Power - Steem Power is the same as STEEM except it's locked away for a period of time, it gives you influence in the system that STEEM does not, and it gives you some protection from dilution.
You can't purchase Steem Power directly - you need to purchase STEEM then "Power Up" your STEEM.
Owning Steem Power (SP) is kind of like having restricted shares in a company, or in this case, the Steem blockchain. Increase your SP and you’ll have more influence on the network thanks to a more powerful vote. You'll also be able to use your SP to determine the Steem witnesses, who in a way, act like board members of a company. SP is restricted because it's less liquid than STEEM. You cannot sell your Steem Power - it must first be converted into STEEM.
Converting your Steem Power into STEEM is done by "powering down." If you go into your wallet and click "Power Down," exactly one week later you'll receive a payment of STEEM. You'll get 1/13 each week for 13 weeks. If you had 1,300 SP when you first powered down, you'd receive 100 STEEM per week for the next 13 weeks. You can stop the power down process at any time.
While Steem Power cannot be sold, it can be lent out by delegating it to another user.
Steem Dollars - Also referred to as STEEM-Backed Dollars, or SBD, each Steem Dollar is a claim ticket to $1.00 worth of STEEM. If you go to your wallet and click "Convert To STEEM," the system will take the average price of STEEM over the next 3.5 days and give you the appropriate amount. If the average STEEM price during that 3.5-day period is $2.00, you'll receive 0.5 STEEM.
Where does the money come from?
The currency of Steemit.com is Steem. The value of Steem comes from investors, users, and traders on exchanges.
Using a pre-determined mathematical formula, the Steem network continually creates new Steem tokens to reward content creators and curators. Some of the newly-created currency gets transferred to users who add value to Steemit by blogging, commenting, and voting on other people's blog posts. The remainder is distributed to holders of Steem Power and Steem witnesses.
The "money" at its core is like game tokens, distributed to creators and curators as rewards for successfully playing the game. What makes the system robust is that the tokens, traded on markets, have a real-time value. The markets allow Steem tokens to demonstrate their value. This way, when one has a Steem token, that person can know what their token is worth to other people. It is similar to how someone playing a video game could obtain a rare item by playing the game. If they have the scarce item, then they could potentially sell it on video game item markets. Think of Steem as a game system for content, where the rewards people earn are video game tokens that have real market value and are readily tradable for Bitcoin and USD.
Another way of looking at Steemit is as a website much like Reddit. However, it is different in that it pulls its information from a decentralized blockchain and cryptocurrency database called Steem rather than a centralized, private database. In this way, Steemit is also analogous to other blockchain-based businesses such as Blockchain.info, which pulls its data from the Bitcoin network.
Rewards paid to bloggers do not come from Steemit Inc, or investment in Steemit Inc. It comes from the Steem blockchain itself. Steemit does not and will not ever compensate the contributors of the Steem network for curating and creating content. Steemit is not a middleman to any of the blockchain processes, and the technology remains completely open source and transparent for anyone to audit and verify. Steemit is a social network built on the Steem blockchain, whose users are paid by the blockchain.
For a more in-depth look, check out: https://steemit.com/steem/@steemrollin/steem-where-does-the-money-come-from