What is Steem?
Steem is a cryptocurrency that rewards the users of the Steemit platform (Steemit.com) for their activity on the platform, as well as on other platforms and apps, such as Esteem and DTube.
What is Hive?
Hive is another cryptocurrency that rewards users for their activity on various platforms and applications using the Hive blockchain.
Examples of these platforms and applications are Ecency, Leofinance, Splinterlands, PeakD and HiveBlog, to name a few.
How are Steem users rewarded?
Steem users are rewarded in Steem, Steem Dollars (SBD), and Tron (TRX).
In terms of content related activities, Steem users are rewarded for posting their own articles and commenting on other users’ articles, when other users upvote those articles and comments.
Also, they are rewarded for upvoting other users’ articles and comments, and their upvoting rewards depend on various factors, such as how much Steem Power they have, when they upvote other users’ articles and comments.
How are Hive users rewarded?
Hive users receive their rewards in Hive and Hive Dollars (HBD).
However, since Hive Engine tokens are also part of the Hive ecosystem, users may also receive various tokens as rewards, some of which have funny or strange names, such as NEOXAG, PIZZA, LOLZ, etc.
When it comes to receiving rewards for content posting, upvoting, commenting, etc., it is more or less the same system as with Steem rewards.
There is a major difference though, which applies to users using the Ecency website.
Unlike Steem users, Hive users can accumulate Ecency points that offer users the opportunity to boost or promote their posts for a certain period of time, depending on how many Ecency points they have and want to spend.
For example, at the time of writing this article, if a member of the Ecency platform chooses to promote one of their articles on the platform for 1 day, they have to spend 150 Ecency points, and, on top of that, have their content approved by administrators.
Investing in Steem and Hive
Someone who is not that good at content writing and/or does not want to participate in content posting and other activities that take place in the Steem and Hive ecosystems may choose to just invest in any of the cryptocurrency coins and tokens supported.
Staking is a basic form of investment in Steem and Hive, which is very similar to having a savings account where you can save your cryptocurrency to earn interest.
As a I write this article, the Steem and Hive platforms offer very attractive SBD and HBD savings rates, respectively, both standing at an impressive rate of 20% APR.
This rate may of course change in the future, but as it stands right now, it is very attractive to investors wishing to invest in either SBD or HBD.
Other than investing in SBD or HBD, users can also invest in (power up) Steem Power or Hive Power.
Although Steem Power or Hive Power interest rates are too low, compared to SBD or HBD interest rates, respectively, with the current rates ranging around 3% APR, investing in Steem Power or Hive Power has the extra benefit of allowing users to be more active in the Steem and Hive blockchain based social ecosystems and increase their vote weight with time.
Ultimately, this could help users earn more rewards, boost their presence and status on the platforms, and pave their way to hopefully becoming “big fish” (so-called “whales”) rather than staying “minnows”.
There are other forms of investment, such as delegating Steem Power or Hive Power, or voting for witnesses, which can earn users passive rewards
What other platforms compete with the Steem and Hive platforms?
There are platforms and websites similar to those supported by Steem and Hive that reward their users in crypto for their activities.
These platforms and websites use different cryptocurencies for user rewards.
For example, Read.Cash rewards users in Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Publish0x in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and many more.
Sources and further reading:
What Are Steem and Hive? A Comparison of Both Decentralized Content Blockchains
Steemit vs Hive Blog: Which is currently better?
This article was originally published by me on Vocal.Media.
You can read it here.
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