I wrote a post a while ago that explained the difference between STEEM, STEEM Power, STEEM Backed Dollars, and Vests. It was a response to the following comment I noticed on a post:

The comment assumed STEEM, STEEM Power, and STEEM Backed Dollars were the three currencies, but there is no such thing as STEEM Power. If you want to understand why read my post.

This leads me to this post, I am surprised a lot of people do not understand that just holding STEEM as STEEM Power will give them more STEEM in the long run. Before I get into that, I want to quote the important part of the article above as it will help this make sense.

Vests

Now here is where people get lost. Vests are stupidly confusing and not very well understood. When you power up and buy "STEEM power" you are buying vests. Vests represent how much ownership you have on the platform. It is like buying stock, you claim a small piece of ownership. If you have enough ownership you gain influence. In the stock world, this influence is shareholder meetings and even the ability to influence the direction of a company if your stake is large enough. On STEEM this influence is voting power. The more ownership (Vests) you own, the larger you can influence (Vote) on the platform.

Once you understand you are buying "Vests" and not STEEM Power, things make a little more sense. Buying Vests (aka STEEM Power) is like buying stock in a company. You are acquiring ownership on the STEEM platform. The ownership (or Vests) are worth more as time passes, and are more expensive to buy with STEEM. If you look at how much 1 MVest (1 Million Vests) is worth today compared to 2 years ago, you can see how much STEEM you would have gained by hodling STEEM.

STEEM per 1 Million vests

Today - 491.663
2 Years ago - 197.416

If you had powered up and bought 1 Million Vests two years ago, it would have said you powered up 197.416 STEEM Power. If you have powered down today, it would power down as 491.663 STEEM Power over 13 weeks. A net gain of 149% of your initial investment, without placing a single vote.