Overall a very comprehensive approach to building a chain specialized for social media. They also have various noteworthy security and password recovery innovations.
Summary from the blue paper: "Steem offers users the unique ability to publish and store different types of content directly and permanently into the immutable ledger of the blockchain as plain text. Once stored in the blockchain, data becomes available publicly for developers to build from. Developers are able to interact with the content directly in the blockchain using the available APIs. Several of the blockchain primitives developers can build from include Account Names, Posts, Comments, Votes and Account Balance. "
The chain has additional unique features such as:
- Incentive mechanism for content creation and curation (called the "rewards pool") -Rewards are decided democratically by token holders based on content quality.
- Stolen Account Recovery, Escrow services, User promoted content, Reputation system, Time-Locked Savings accounts, Hierarchical Private Key Structure, Multiple Reward Beneficiaries, User name as wallet address
- Three second confirmation times and zero fees on all transactions.
- They've got a multi-chain setup and are Proof of Stake
Mission: "bringing smart and social currency to publishers and community builders across the Internet." (Blue Paper)
Tokenomics summarized: The rewards pool is made up of 75% of the new STEEM tokens that are generated by the Steem blockchain every year. The remaining tokens are distributed to vested token holders (15%) and Witnesses (block producers who help with the platform's consensus protocol, 10%). The amount of new tokens generated by the Steem blockchain decreases over time, with the goal of eventually reaching a stable rate of inflation. Show Less