Witnesses

So Steem trades at: $1.368257

1 block gets mined every 3 seconds

How much STEEM is in each block? Is it just 1?

I can't really figure out how much the witnesses get per block; the FAQ says 10% goes to 'witnesses', but this article: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@timcliff/til-how-much-witnesses-and-miners-make-per-block seems to say something else.

So let's just try and ballpark it -

(1block/3seconds)*(1steem/block)*(0.10)*(1.368257$/1steem)*(60secs/min)*(60min/hr)*(24hr/day)

So that's $3940.58 per day in witness fees. Pretty good deal for them. Figure that's split across the 20-ish witness/backup-witnesses, etc.

Still, $200 bucks a day just to run a computer program sounds pretty lucrative to me.

Economy

How much currency is Steem generating per day, then? Well, it would seem: $39,405.80

Seriously, generating that much dollar-value per day? That's crazy. I mean, my time is valuable, and my attention-span is valuable, but I've glanced through the Steem bloggy post things, and I don't think I'm seeing that amount of value being created.

Will definitely require more research.