An interesting thing just happened. The majority of people seeking to create value on the STEEM blockchain have moved over to HIVE to create value there. I'm not really talking about bloggers here, though they are important. I'm talking about multiple projects, developers, large stakeholders, visionaries, along with prominent bloggers. What does that leave STEEM with? If the STEEM community no longer contains many who seek to create value, and contains mostly those that seek to extract it, what do you think will happen?
I have a pretty good idea what will happen, especially if Justin Sun actually fulfills his promise to remove downvotes. The reward pool will continue to get thinner and thinner, and this will continue to put significant downward pressure on the price of STEEM as milkers dump the token. Now take the other side of the equation. It is clear with projects moving over to HIVE, that more liquidity for HIVE will be required, and there will also be more sinks for the HIVE token.
This is going to be an interesting case study for crypto economists and historians in the future. I for one am thrilled to have chosen the blockchain where the energy and talent have gone. I can already see the milkers on the STEEM blockchain, firing back up their spam machines, salivating at the powerdowns of the accounts that cared enough to bother to downvote them. Though it's likely STEEM will not die off completely, if it avoids becoming a TRON token, I predict it will be sub-penny before too long. Contrary to that, I have seen more energy poured into HIVE in such a compressed amount of time, than I have ever seen in the crypto space.
My final thought is that curbing reward pool abuse will be just as critical on HIVE as it was on STEEM. This will be proven in the end by simply observing what happens to the reward pool on both chains. Stay diligent my friends, and continue support the abuse fighters on our new chain.
As always, your thoughts and comments are appreciated even more than your votes are.