What are the best 25 posts ever made on Steem? 40 of us collaborated to make this list of the top 25 posts on Steem because we hope each of us can have the same amazing experience we did reading these posts! To help build our community and show off our best work, we will also be advertising these posts on Facebook and Google to help millions more readers enjoy what we have created!

Top 25 Steem Posts!

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1. Steemit Good News Story #1 Attacking Global Poverty with STEEM and Steemit written by @paulag and recommended by @clixmoney! Summary? 74 million of us on earth live on under $1.90 a day. Steem provides the opportunity for nearly any author today to consistently earn this much meaning that Steem currently is the best opportunity for a basic income token globally.
2. Powerful Language Hacks that will ACCOMPLISH YOUR MISSION! written by @robertgenito. Summary? Paying attention to the language we use has huge impacts on the results we get in life. For example, choosing to say what needs to be done instead of saying what not to do makes communication more effective and enjoyable!
3. See Just How Powerful A Simple Steemit Post Really Is (In The Words Of An Illiterate!!!) The Internet Has Never Been This Awesome!!! written by @surpassinggoogle and recommended by @clixmoney. Summary? Steem is helping us connect and earn regardless of our location which is a miracle for each of us living in a world now where Google and Facebook focus what we see locally.
4. The Remarkable Diary of an Earthship Eco Builder Chapter #2. The dream was born written by @eco-alex. Summary? Instead of planning a future where we hope to move into a nicer neighborhood and a bigger house, what would our home look like if we considered the impact of our lifestyle on the planet? How can we make a home that includes everything we want with as little waste as possible?
5. The Day the Paywalls Died: How Steem’s Smart Media Token Saved My Family’s Newspaper written by @donkeypong and recommended by @lann. Summary? This story set in 2019 shows clearly how Smart Media Tokens will allow publishing companies like newspapers to make a huge comeback with a transition into a business model that makes raising capital simple and rewards ongoing participation from readers and authors instead of accepting money from advertisers.
6. Hello Steemit! My name is Alla, I am a Youtuber and private chef with my own show... Let's do this!! by @allasyummyfood and recommended by @kingjan. Summary? Alla's introduction post sharing her journey prior to Steem combined with seeing all she has contributed to Steem is enough to inspire us to go all in on being a member of our community and giving all we can each day!
7. Steemit Releases Groundbreaking Account Recovery Solution by @dan and recommended by @marlon241982. Summary? Most cryptocurrency wallets can be completely emptied in an instant by anyone that gets access from a family member stealing money to a hacker compromising millions of wallets. Steem is the first to offer an account recovery solution which when combined with powering up Steem provides the safest solution for holding any amount of cryptocurrency in a wallet!
8. A Minnow's Guide to Steemit by @shinyforest and recommended by @mikepm74. Summary? Most of us new to Steem can learn a lot by reading this one post which covers the basic Steem terminology, how to get started successfully, Discord channels, posting strategies, commenting, payout settings, and perhaps most importantly the bigger picture. "Steem thrives when the community grows!"
9. The SEO of Steemit.com by @cryptoctopus and recommended by @clixmoney. Summary? New bloggers and internet marketers often spend a fortune in time and money just trying to get noticed in Google and shared on social media. Once we see how powerful Steem is for Search Engine Optimization (SEO = ranking a post high in Google), we are unlikely to ever consider blogging anywhere else especially when combined with the possibility of earning rewards on posts!
10. What gives Crypto value? A letter to potential investors by @aggroed and recommended by @mikepm74. Summary? "The value of the currency ≈ total number of people using the system ... Cryptos are a combination of a stock and a currency."
11. 10 Things I Learned From Being Homeless by @arbitrarykitten and recommended by @verdanas. Summary? Being homeless can easily happen to any of us and it looks a lot different from the inside!
12. Steemit Is So Much More Than Just A Method For Individuals To Get Paid For Blogging, The Philosophy Behind The Steemit Platform Could Truly Revolutionize The Way Individuals Use The Internet. by @cryptofreedom and recommended by @kerry234. Summary? "Steem proves that a platform where individuals have access to the value that they generate is possible, and it may start a domino effect of users looking for platforms that have their best interests in mind."
13. My Suggestions and Advice for new Users on Steemit. by @phelimint and recommended by @clumsysilverdad. Summary? We get 8 recommendations in this post that make getting started and getting through the challenging times on Steem much easier! Our friends and family often struggle to begin on Steem. We hope showing them this post early on might help!
14. Steemit Synergy: The True Value of Steem is Incentivized, Quality-based Attention. by @kafkanarchy84 and recommended by @luckysteem. Summary? "One of the most valuable and yet overlooked commodities on the market today is attention. As self-made man and CEO/founder of VaynerMedia, Gary Vaynerchuk says: 'I'm a day trader in attention.' "
15. Smart Media Tokens: Introducing the Game Changer by @the-alien. Summary? "So if you’re a Youtuber, Blogger, writer with your own fan base or community, you might wanna check the Smart Media Tokens ... the same is true for multi-user platforms that already established like Medium or FEE.org, or even traditional style magazines like Mashable or Rolling Stone."
16. Homesteading Saved My Life! by @sthomestead and recommended by @winvideos. Summary? "It has been about 5 1/2 years now since I got the news ... stage 3 colon cancer ... I was only 39 years and physically appeared to be in pretty good shape ... chemo was out but what was I going to do to instead? Simple, eat right and exercise. Could it be that simple?"
17. How I Made Enough Money with Steem to Buy A New Nissan Leaf by @demotruk and recommended by @bolaamir. Summary? "I started investing in Steem ... As the price dropped, I bought more ... Despite losses, I kept doubling down, in fact some of the most money I spent was at a price $0.07 ... While acknowledging problems, I continued to believe in the core concept ... the price of Steem was eventually propelled back to $2.80 ... I have still kept the vast majority of my Steem powered up."
18. 3 months, 1000 Followers and $1 Million Later... by @trafalgar and recommended by @bolaamir. Summary? "It feels like it was only yesterday when I made my first post on Steemit, but it's actually been almost 90 yesterdays. Sure takes a while to make a million bucks on this site doesn't it? My journey on Steemit has undoubtedly been a surreal experience ... I was fascinated by the concept of a decentralized social media platform that rewarded authors based on the likes they receive on their posts ... Screw it, I thought, I'm going all in on Steem, which turned out to be about 500,000 Steem for 20c ... So, what am I going to do now that Steem is over $2 and I'm up a cool million?"
19. Healing BiPolar Without Medication by @zincali. Summary? "I was diagnosed with bipolar when I was just 19 years old. My last clinical depression was felt when I was 24 years old. I have been free now of this condition for 28 years to date ... It just didn't make sense to me to be taking tablets that did not work and if Lithium was not going to cure the problem completely and they really repulsed me, I saw no point in continuing with the treatment ... I then asked myself, WHO AM I and WHERE DO I COME FROM ... I then sincerely forgave myself for being so hard on myself and thanked the infinite one for making me realise this and went out and bought an ice cream. I have never suffered from depression since."
20. The Secret To Success On Steemit: It Isn't Posting Article or Re-Steeming (For Dolphins And Minnows) written by @taskmaster4450 and recommended by @creon. Summary? "Excited blogger joins Steemit.com with the expectation of making money from writing about what he or she loves. Said blogger puts up a wonderful post worthy of mention by the local Historical Society, gets no upvotes, complains the system is rigged, and leaves to grace some other site with his/her presence ... For whatever reason, we all believe that posting article is the most important aspect of steemit.com ... Therefore, I suggested that it is best for all of us to leave as many comments as we can ... quality comments mean MONEY ... I have received upvotes on comments paying $6, $8, even $11 just for that vote ... There are many whales who read the comment sections of posts ... there is a much better chance of someone with a lot of Steem power finding you there than him or her coming across your post."
21. Invest in Steemians Like You Would With Cryptocurrencies written by @jedau and recommended by @creon. Summary? "Living on the STEEM blockchain means that we ourselves are in a position where people "invest" in the things we put out ... What I can adjust are my expectations ... The folks that made Steemit were really on to something when they created this awesome platform. Not only did they sought to monetize posts and comments, but in effect they made the creators as investments. The creators themselves are the investments ... If you're one of those investments like me that feel like you're not making what you're worth, just keep at it and don't compromise the quality of your work."
22. Cryptoeconomics: A Brief Discussion written by @andrarchy and recommended by @paulspujats. Summary? "One of my most oft cited reasons for loving steemit is that it enabled me to invest by contributing labor--by doing things I wanted to do anyway. The fact that you can learn, grow, and gain exposure while earning tokens that you can trade for other tokens is a paradigm shift that few yet understand or appreciate. I didn't sacrifice anything, I grew as a person and a creator, and in exchange for that I received money. You can then treat those tokens as "play money" that you use to experiment, learn, develop hypotheses, test your assumptions, etc. That's going to get you much farther than even a PhD in macro."
23. Utopian: My Contribution to the Open Source World written by @elear and recommended by @telasius. Summary? "Utopian.io rewards Open Source contributors for their work ... I am a dreamer and I always had the hope that one day, anyone, with no more than a good project, could contribute to the Open Source world, join forces with other contributors and be rewarded for that, thus increasing the interest in Open Source projects and speed up the development of exciting new ideas.
    That's why few years ago I came up with Utopian ... There were so many issues I had to solve to make Utopian a reality ... Steem provided practicable answers to all my questions ... By providing a way to earn rewards/income from the contributions, Utopian aims to provide a new form of work compensation, a new meritocratic economy from which everyone will benefit immediately."
24. Creating The World We Long For! written by @teamsteem and recommended via @elear. Summary? "This post is about how to create the world we long for and how Steem and other cryptocurrencies can play a big part in this, why we should all try to boost Steem's growth with each of our posts as well as ways to incentivize such sharing so it becomes part of Steemians' second nature. Most people who could benefit from using Steem haven't heard about it yet and it's a no-brainer for everyone to work toward a better world helping remediate to this ... reaching out to people is one of the most important thing in regard to creating the world we long for that's why I want to reward those who are doing it ... I Made Money On Steemit And So Can You!"
25. My 3000 follower milestone : Is now conquered - Big thank you to all my followers and Steemit - Here's a recap of my entire journey! written by @sweetsssj and discovered via @teamsteem. Summary? "Before Steemit, the depth and breadth of my blogging experience extended to just my friends and family on WeChat ... Like many of you early on, I found it difficult to find my own niche. It seems every girl is an accomplished lifestyle / travel / fashion blogger. But the point is, it doesn't matter what others are doing. Because I knew I had my stories to tell, so.. I just told them. Pretty quickly, I realized that even though my peers in China lived perhaps more glamorous lifestyles than myself, they didn't have the tenacity to put their experiences down on paper, or spend time really collating their thoughts over their experiences. Most of them would post pictures on Instagram, and leave the rest to imagination. Steemit gave me the opportunity to do more than just post pictures. I could also tell my story, express it through words. Reach an audience of English speakers AND Chinese speakers. Use many different forms of expression to engage with my followers, and give them multi-pronged experiences that could not be found anywhere else."

Steem Founder @Ned's Top "Post"!

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Our founder @ned did not make the list above with a specific post because I think the best of what @ned has published recently is available at https://smt.steem.io/ which provides us motivation to go all in on Steem in 2018! Thank you also to @theoretical, @vandeberg, @itwasntme, @zgredek, @pychol-mychol, @small.minion, @youkaicountry, @picokernel, @sneak, @valzav, @justinw, @goldibex, and @pkattera for contributing to the SMT whitepaper!

Further Reading + Research!

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The list above is the tip of the iceberg of what we are doing here on Steem and fails to include the majority of our authors, witnesses, investors, applications, and readers. Adding a couple of more bullet points will not change that but does help me mention a few more that did not fit evenly into a post above!

1. @dtube by @heimindanger at https://d.tube/ has given video producers demontized on YouTube like @davidpakman and vloggers like @exyle, @dollarvigilante, @karensuestudios, @dontstopmenow, @acidyo, and @mrviquez the chance to earn enough income to make Steem and DTube a priority which as an fellow vlogger myself is a miracle! While @dtube has a helpful about page explaining what it is, I struggled to find one post on steemit.com that does the same AND is up to date. The original launch post is very helpful as long as we know the new url is d.tube instead of dtube.video and the interface, features, and functionality all have major updates which are linked on the new https://about.d.tube/.
2. @stellabelle is one of the authors consistently mentioned as "the one who inspired me to join Steemit" among some of the earliest adopters. Her post Dear @freedom And Whales: Here's a SP Delegatee Menu To Solve The Vote Selling Problem has an outstanding list of people to get to know on Steem.
3. I am authoring this post on busy.org which provides an alternative interface for Steem and helps upvote posts when using the tag busy on the post! Thank you to @ekitcho, @fabien, @nil1511, @p0o, and @yamadapc for helping me make my posts to Steem every day with busy.org!
4. Meeting people face to face has been huge for me in getting connected more deeply with our community on Steem! Thank you to @roelandp for organizing Steemfest for the last two years which has helped hundreds of us from around the world to meet in person! Enjoy all of the presentations from Steemfest free on YouTube here! We hope to see you at the third Steemfest which @roelandp is probably underway planning already!
5. @jesta maintains https://steemdb.com/ which is extremely helpful for diving deep into the data on every Steem account, app, witness, and post. I use SteemDB almost every day. @jesta also maintains a desktop wallet for us which is extremely useful in managing delegations and creating accounts along with https://chainbb.com/ which allows us to browse Steem as forum by topic along with seeing posts most actively discussed instead of just those posted within 7 days and sorted by rewards.

About The List!

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1. Every author with a top 25 post and every recommendation will receive 10 Steem each as soon as I make this post as a part of the contest we held a few weeks ago funded through our budget proposal system.
2. The list of the top 25 Steem posts above is ranked in the order I found them which makes the relative ranking totally arbitrary. I chose posts optimized for reading which meant excluding any posts with primarily a video.
3. Each author was only allowed to appear once in this list. I could spend another hundred hours talking about the valuable contributions made by thousands more of us here and will slow down now because we are already at almost 3,000 words.
4. Funding for this contest and any project intended to promote Steem is available from @budgets. @budgets helped promote this post with voting bots to help more of us find some of our best posts and discover our budget proposal system.
5. All SBD author rewards from this post will be sent directly to @budgets along with the automatic daily payments from the voting bot I maintain on my account. Thank you to @spmarkets, @freedom, and @drorion for the largest delegations to me which average a payout of about 60% APR and are the primary source of voting power for the bot which is how @budgets is funded.

Witness Update!

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I am grateful since my last update my witness server and backup server have continued to run without missing any blocks! With witness votes being the most important we make on Steem, I am grateful 3,199 of us have chosen to either vote for me as a witness or set me as a proxy at https://steemit.com/~witnesses.

Thank you very much to @freedom via @pumpkin, @hendrikdegrote, @thejohalfiles, @roadscape, @fyrstikken, @adsactly, @glitterfart, @jaewoocho via @clayop, @transisto via @netuoso, and @slowwalker for being the top 10 votes for me as a witness which collectively provide the majority of the total stake voting for me!

All of my 100,000+ Steem power is used to increase the bot's voting power which increases the funding for payouts via @budgets and to delegators. If you have not voted yet, would you please vote for me as a witness or set me as a proxy at https://steemit.com/~witnesses because every vote increases the funding available indefinitely for projects that add value to Steem? If you think you have voted already, would you verify there is a green arrow next to jerrybanfield because hundreds of us thought a vote was placed only to discover it did not go through?

Advertising Our Top 25 Posts!

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To help grow our community via ads on Facebook and the Google display network, I will be submitting all of the top 25 posts as ads that will show to millions of people online as a part of the ongoing project we have collaborated on together at https://airtable.com/shrXuoYTnODWA0QG1 with @budgets now the #1 source of funding! This post will be advertised on Facebook and YouTube with a matching video to help give those new to Steem the complete experience while on Google each post individually in the top 25 will be shown in ads mostly to viewers having already learned about Steem.

Upvote to Support The Next Contest?

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Thank you very much for reading our top 25 list of posts on Steem here! Every upvote on this post will contribute funding to @budgets because the SBD payout I receive in author rewards will be sent to @budgets while the Steem power received will indefinitely increase the voting value of the bot.

The next contest I am planning will help reward thousands of authors with $0 in earnings on Steem which I hope will inspire thousands more valuable posts, tens of thousands more new users, and hundreds of thousands of new readers over the next year.

Would you please upvote this post 100% because all of the SBD rewards will go directly to @budgets to fund the next contest?

Love,
Jerry Banfield