There are four main reasons why I am not surprised with the recent jump in price in Steem and also why I think the recent price surge should not be considered a "pump" but rather an overdue price correction.
1. It is an extremely fast transaction speeded crypto with no fees
This one speaks for itself. We are constantly hearing about the slow transaction times of coins such as bitcoin and also how expensive transacting can be with these cryptos. Steemit solves both of these problems and there is also talk about a steem debit card being released.
2. The majority of steem is not tradable as it is locked up in peoples Steem Power.
Steem Power is extremely important in creating longterm income on this platform. When people power up their Steem they are effectively making it impossible for them to sell it in the short term. Coinmarketcap has the Circulating Supply at 246,058,317 STEEM. Compared to some other crypto currencies that have billions and billions of supply, this is a very relatively low amount. In addition to this, most of the supply is locked up in Steem Power! This restricts the amount able to be sold or more importantly bought up at any given time. This creates an even bigger chance for a large pump that holds its price because people are not able to sell Steem Power immediately thanks to the power down process.
3. It only has a current market cap of about two billion.
As of the time of this post, the market cap for Steem is still under 2 billion. Coinmarketcap has the Circulating Supply at 246,058,317 STEEM. Compared to some other crypto currencies that have billions and billions of supply, this is a very relatively low amount. In addition to this, most of the supply is locked up in Steem Power! This restricts the amount able to be sold or more importantly bought up at any given time. This creates an even bigger chance for a large pump that holds its price because people are not able to sell Steem Power immediately thanks to the power down process. We have all seen plenty of alt coins going from the 1 - 2 billion range to close to 20 billion dollars recently and I think Steem could do this (would be about 80 dollars per Steem) in 2018. This large increase in price would also increase publicity for Steemit which would only amplify the rise in price.
4. It is harder to generate than SBD
From what I have seen it is much easier to generate 1 SBD than 1 Steem, even though currently SBD is higher priced. This being said, Steem is ultimately the main useful cryptocurrency behind Steemit (see point 2). From what I have learned, SBD was created to provide liquidity purposes and is currently worth more than Steem. I do not understand why and think that this will change in the near future. Recently, when I have been getting rewarded for a post, I have been receiving over double SBD than Steem. I also have tried to convert SBD to Steem recently as a test. I gave 0.500 SBD for 0.294 STEEM. This was with the price of SBD being almost 4 times what Steem was. As more people come onto Steemit and want to invest in the future of the platform (or just speculate on the price), Steem will in my opinion be more and more sought over and will continue to increase in price.
All of these factors will in my opinion, increase the price of Steem quite a bit in the future. What do you think will happen to the price of Steem in 2018?