I've earned actual money on Steemit for my writing. Actions on the site, such as upvoting, commenting, and creating content, all "mine" STEEM cryptocurrency. The tokens represent the value of the collective project, and can easily be transferred into Bitcoin, which can then be transferred into USD. If you're interested in learning more, I interviewed the CEO of Steemit to help myself wrap my head around the platform: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/ste...