Their are a few factors that influence the price of Steem recently:
high price of SBD --> enables the less wealthy Steemians to buy cheap Steem back to power-up, where this would otherwise not affordable.
a company announced a airdrop for Steem holders --> Steemians get free tokens --> people buy Steem to get some extra steem.
the overall very good performance of the platform, while the prices are very low, relatively speaking.
That's all I can come up with right now.
RE: Steem Is Going Off The Chart