When I got to the Steem Blockchain in July 2016 all there was build on top of the blockchain was Steemit.com.
That's what Steem was for me at the time
You often hear people on here say that STEEM 'used to be' a top 3 coin and OH! how we have fallen.
But I like to put that in a little bit of perspective.
This is what happened to the STEEM price 5 months after the token became tradable on the exchanges for the first time.
Now in hindsight, this is not so crazy.
STEEM was 100% pre-mined at the time and STEEM never had an ICO.
And that last part is key it means that STEEM was never backed by an initial value.
For what Steem was at the time it was most likely overvalued.
You had a handful of accounts with all the STEEM and a whole bunch of content creators with nothing.
Also, the economics were not in favor of any buyer with a 160% inflation for instance and a two year Powerdown period for anyone that wanted to stake their STEEM.
When those few mega whales started to vote (and often bundled, and remember this is N^2) their votes on some content creators it doesn't take much to imagine what happened to the payouts on those posts.
They exploded to often THOUSANDS of dollars.
When people talk romanticly about this period of Steemit.com you can bet your ass they are probably the people that got voted on.
For the rest of the people, it was shit and you couldn't do anything about it yourself to solve the situation. Even buying STEEM to help yourself was pointless under n^2. Because of N^2 you couldn't buy influence. The only way you were going to earn anything was praying to the whale gods that you were good enough to be blessed with an upvote from them.
I hated it because I can't stand it if I have to rely on someone else in this life. I like to be independent. Be in control.
I got my chance.
With the STEEM price going down rapidly at that time a lot of people that were earning STEEM/SBD wanted to get rid of it as soon as they could and the price of STEEM tanked.
In November 2016 HF 16 changed the economics. The Powerdown period went from 2 years to 3 months and inflation from 160% to 9,5%. here.
I remember thinking at the time that this would mean that everyone that wanted to get out of Steem could do so in 3 months. I expected the price to go up after that.
I had to go into the Exyle Blog archives and dig up this post:
This is what I thought back then from the post.
The chance of the whole top 100 powering down is not so big. So this is worst case.
Under the old rules, the inflation rate was so high that the flow of Steem hitting the market every day would be going up every day forever.
Under the new rules the inflation is way lower (only 9,5%). So once all the STEEM is sold there is no more STEEM hitting the market. The Flow will stop after 3 months.
I started to buy as much STEEM as I could back then throwing in whatever I could spare. It was a bottomless pit.
This is what taking risk is and believe me it was fucking scary.
But as it turned out I was almost right. Not 3 but 4-5 months later the price went up.
And not much later we found ourselves in the craziest bull market I had ever seen and 9 months later STEEM had gone up from $0,07 to very briefly $8,60.
Most people know about this history.
And after that peak and the bear market, we are now back to what I would say reality.
With STEEM back at realistic prices is it dead?
I would say no. I would say Steem is much better and stronger today as a blockchain then it ever was.
I would even say this time around it's undervalued.
STEEM is much better distributed than ever. We have more development than ever and Steem inc. has made incredible changes to the blockchain making sure we can scale in the future and it's cheap to keep it running.
Plus you can do way more with STEEMPOWER than ever before. (RC credits, making accounts, delegation, etc, etc).
I know the STEEM price is lacking behind compared to other projects, it sucks obviously, and this seems to be a concern for many.
But for me, that is only a concern for the sellers and not really for the builders or the buyers on this blockchain today.
I'll leave this post with my latest Twitter ramblings.
I will continue to build and promote STEEM because I believe in this project and my personal vision for it.
When the next bull market starts STEEM is ready. If you believe in STEEM this is the time.
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