Wonder why STEEM being the most active blockchain struggle around $1B marketcap and ranked around 30. Is it worse than top 29 coins or, it has some critical flaws that keep it from the rise. Have you observed that when it goes beyond 25 rank, rapidly comes back to 30 or 31 rank, here are some analysis for the cause.
STEEM is half baked that means it needs for time to be cooked and edible. Steemit's fundamental design has not changed that much when it was first released. Hivemind in upcoming Velocity hardfork can change that. Currently, it is a large streaming machine with little organization. It is quite hard to find a like minded community to hang around. Hivemind is supposed to change this scenario. On the other hand, SMT is supposed to be killer feature for STEEM blockchain that will provide Ethereum's ERC20 type ICO tokens for new social media type businesses. APPICS, the first SMT, has started crowd-sale. However, there is no schedule date for SMT's release. Due to uncertainty with Hivemind and SMT release dates, STEEM is hovering around where it is right now.
Though decentralized social media is less prone to censorship and data breach (i.e. everything is transparent in STEEM blockchain), it is easier to abuse it. Since there is no such central authority to make judgement, anarchic governments (e.g. whales and dolphins) suppose to take care of it. However, this kind of Government is still evolving and may take some time. Spamming is well taken care of. But there are lots of loop-holes that can be easily used. It needs few more upgrades in algorithms (e.g. hardforks), well established middle class (who can fight a powerful evil entity in unison), and good whales. Bidbots are using limits, white/blacklists and rating system for users to handle abuses. However, content discovery and rewarding the best content is still a hard problem to be solved. A good content still needs some sort of advertising (e.g. bidbots), networking and investing (i.e. staking some SP to selfvote). It is like that if you have worked hard for contents, you have work hard for its success too. However, if abuses are contained to certain level through hardforks and community effort, more rewards will be used for content discovery and rewarding the best efforts.
Creation of new account is still ridiculously slow due to manual approval. When onboarding will become easier, it will bring in some new investors who may want to buy some STEEM to powerup. This buying pressure will compensate the sell pressure from content creators who may need that money for living. There are still large amounts of STEEM held by early developers and investors who are cashing out on each price spike. However, this distribution process is making STEEM support price higher and higher. Does anybody think that he/she can get STEEM for a dollar ever however, if BTC does not hit below $6000 again. STEEM's distribution needs some time to see a big price appreciation.
@berniesanders's recent blog: Why is Steem never represented at any real crypto conferences? is a desperation to attract STINC's attention to get some publicity. On the other hand, newer and less active (transaction-wise) coins such as TRON, EOS, CARDANO and VERGE are hot in news and most cases hyped on news. Though STEEM is making progress everyday through new DApps or code upgrades, there is a seldom press release or community update through other hot channels (e.g. twitter, Youtube, MSM). Even STINC's main webpage looks mundane compared to its competitors. Hopefully, STINC will step up their marketing effort after Hivemind and SMT release.
It is very hard to trade in BTC since BTC can fluctuate itself. It is great to see Huobi having a STEEM/USDT pair. Unfortunately, residents of US and Canada are not allowed to open an account. STEEM is disabled for eons in Poloniex and HitBTC, there is no USDT pair in Bittrex, Poloniex or HitBTC. Therefore, STEEM is not in the rudder of heavy traders yet. However, that can be changed if Huobi's competitors OKex, Bitfinex, Bithumb etc. decide to add STEEM/USDT pairs. If STEEM's demand rises due to major news or upgrades, in future, Binance or Bittrex even Coinbase may add STEEM/USDT pair.
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Thanks for reading.
@riseofth
Cryptominer and occasional trader since 2013,
STEEM analyst and tech blogger.