Steem achieved first billion dollar blockchain status on 3rd January 2018. It lost the status in May 3rd, 2018. At the peak of bull market as high as 47 cryptocurrency achieved billion dollar status. Currently there are only 10 of them and five are close (800 millions). Steem's current marketcap is mere $50M. Its price needs twenty times appreciation to reach there.
However, when we look into the coins, we see that Cardano (ranked 13) does not have a proper mainnet yet and BSV is an unnecessary fork of BCH out of arguments. There are hardly any million users for any coins other than ETH, BTC, LTC.
However, BNB showed the path with valuation fo $2.12B. It has sustainable income source to sustain high valuation. Binance usually buys back BNB with profits from its trading fee collections. It means that BNB has fungible value.
Steem can have similar sustainability setups. If the largest holder of Steem, STINC can sustain from Ad selling, then Steem will have more values rather than speculation since large monthly sell will decrease lots of pressure from the price.
In fact, Steem is created based on billions of words produced by thousand of knowledge workers as a proof-of-brain everyday. In economy, value is created upon activities. However, value of an activity is very subjective and hard to put an value. Therefore, Steem's price is so volatile.
Constant hyper marketing by few coins such as TRON, EOS and DGB have created better perception about value of an action on that chain. Some valuation is outright prediction on future non-fungible actions such as Cardano ranked at 13 with $889< marketcap. Speculators have assumed that Cardano will have better DApps and more of users than Steem in future.
However, Steem community, shareholders and entrepreneurs can build their own future. One of the most successful DApp @sprinterlands have surpassedfive million dollar valuation. If 100s of DApps achieve higher valuation and can manage sustainable income sources, Steem can be easily valued over $1B marketcap.
One of the reasons that ETH has 2nd highest marketcap is the success of ERC20 tokens or DApps. If one consider BAT as a DApp for ETH, some will argue otherwise, then it has higher marketcap than Steem. Interestingly, top DApps in the @stateofthedapps is from Steem.
I have blogged earlier that Steem's biggest weak point is negative image among the speculators. Most of them think that @dan has left Steem to build EOS, therefore, Steem will die. In fact, @dan was one of the co-founders of Steem not, the sole founder and codes can't die!
Fortunately, Steem has achieved one thing that other blockchains can only envy even EOS- the largest social community on blockchain. A EOS supporter recently argued that since EOS is spending millions of dollars in DApps then a killer DApp will come forward. However, it's not the devs but crowd of devs that can build the next killer DApp. Steem has better chance than EOS to have next killer DApp. The ranking in the @stateofthedapps already proving that again and again. Ironically, EOS is priced at 47X times in Marketcap of Steem on promise of building 47X better DApp than Steem.
With tribes and @steem-engine, Steem has already shown the future. It has couple of dozens of tribe/DApps with $100Ks valuation. Some of the tribes such as @steem.leo has brought lots of innovation to the investing social space. Upcoming SMT will inspire more innovations and developments.
It will take time to clear the jungle to see the sun. Speculators and hypes are controlling the market. However, they are not sustainable. Only the sustainable blockchain will move forward and achieve high valuation in the next mega altcoin bull run. It is matter of time that Steem's valuation will correct compared to its hyped and better informed peers.
Disclaimer: This opinion is not a financial advice, it my personal perspective and opinion. Please seek professionals for financial decisions. This opinion is only for educational purpose.
Image sources: Most images are open sourced (e.g. Pixabay, Wikimedia etc.) with Creative common license. Some images are used with due courtesy to respected owners.
Thanks for reading.
@dtrade
Cryptominer , occasional trader and tech blogger since 2013