Assuming you’ve already downloaded the Steem blockchain software, the first thing you need to do is launch the steemd application. Once that’s running, you should see a message that says “Waiting for a connection to the Steem network…”.
At this point, you need to tell steemd to connect to a “seed node”. A seed node is just a Steem node that’s already connected to the network, and which can provide steemd with a list of other nodes to connect to. You can find a list of seed nodes here:
https://github.com/steemit/steem/wiki/List-of-Seed-Nodes
To connect to a seed node, simply launch steemd with the “-s” option followed by the seed node’s address. For example, if you wanted to connect to the seed node at steemd.pevo.science, you would launch steemd like this:
./steemd -s steemd.pevo.science
After a minute or so, you should see a message that says “Synchronizing with the network…”. This means that steemd is downloading the blockchain from the seed node. Depending on how far behind the seed node is, this could take a while.
Once steemd has finished downloading the blockchain, you should see a message that says “Blockchain synchronized”. At this point, you can launch the steem-cli application.
The steem-cli application provides a command-line interface (CLI) for interacting with a Steem node. To launch steem-cli, simply run the steem-cli executable with no options:
./steem-cli
You should see a message that says “Connected to Steem node at 127.0.0.1:8090”. This means that steem-cli is connected to your local Steem node.
Now that you’re connected to a Steem node, you can issue commands to it. For example, to get a list of all accounts on the Steem blockchain, you would issue the following command:
> account_list
You should see a JSON-formatted list of all accounts on the Steem blockchain.
Congratulations! You’ve successfully set up your own Steem node!
Other related questions:
Q: What is STEEM blockchain?
A: STEEM is a blockchain-based social media platform that rewards users for their contributions. STEEM tokens are used to power up users’ account and give them voting power on the platform.
Q: Is STEEM a coin?
A: Yes, STEEM is a coin.
Q: Is STEEM decentralized?
A: Yes, STEEM is a decentralized platform.
Q: Can you buy STEEM tokens?
A: Yes, you can buy STEEM tokens from several exchanges including Bittrex, Upbit, and Binance.