One year ago, Ethereum was $11.90. Now it's $175.
One year ago, Bitcoin was $236. Now it's $2172.
In exactly one year, Bitcoin appreciated 9.2 times, while Ethereum appreciated 14.7 times.
Let's ignore for a while the amazing growth and focus on something much more important. It's very easy to get lost in this trend, to ride the momentum and just think "everything will just go up, because, well... the world is changing... and the crypto is the future... and there are unicorns, you know....". I'm not saying the world is not changing. I also think crypto is the future. Not sure about the unicorns. Yet.
But what I'm saying is that beyond this craze there are subtler, more profound hints about what's really happening. Knowing what's happening at this deeper level can make the difference between becoming a real millionaire, with constant returns of investments or just a hobby trader, placing some orders every weekend, when you try to get some rest from your job, which you took to pay the losses accumulated because... well, because the world is changing... and the crypto is the future... and there are unicorns...
Ethereum Is An Ecosystem
The difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum, in terms of growth, is amazing. Just stop for a while and think.
Imagine you have a bottle of water on your porch. And next morning you find 9 more bottles on your porch. That's Bitcoin,in terms of absolute growth. Let's put those bottles aside.
But then next morning you wake up again to find 14 more bottles on your porch. 14 more! That's Ethereum, in terms of absolute growth. That's almost half more than the absolute growth of Bitcoin.
The speed of appreciation of Ethereum is mind blowing.
And you know why?
Because Ethereum is creating an ecosystem. Gnosis and Golem are just two examples. In order to participate in those startups, you had to buy Ether. Or to use the Ethereum network during the crowdsale.
Ethereum is growing not as much by itself, as it grows by its offsprings. It doesn't matter that, at the operational level, Ethereum is not even involved in those startups. What matters is that those startups are using Ethereum's "brick and mortar" foundation to build their own.
Bitcoin lost this battle. I don't even think it ever fought this battle at all. Bitcoin opened the minds of millions of people and that was enough of a war. Ethereum took over and now something bigger is happening.
Why the long introduction?
Well, because what I'm talking about is not really Ethereum, but Steem.
Steem Could Be An Even Better Ecosystem
After HF 17&18, something fundamental happened in the Steem blockchain. It went unnoticed by many, although I wrote extensively about it, as a witness.
It's the arbitrary split of rewards feature, also known, at the code level, as transaction beneficiaries. This feature allows the building of arbitrary rewards splitting platforms, using the Steem blockchain. In simpler words, it allows you to build websites that are saving the data in the Steem blockchain, and YOU control how the generated rewards for that data is distributed. And everything is IN the blockchain, the logic of splitting the rewards is IN the code, not in the application logic.
That's huge.
And we already see this happening, with chainBB, 
There are also other early builders in the Steemit ecosystem: eSteem, by 
Add to this the speed of transactions, the zero cost of transactions, the DPoS governance mechanisms (all of which are just to do's for other blockchains, even for Ethereum) and you get the picture.
The potential is huge.
That's the reason I'm still close to this project, despite the skids, or even temporary insanity bursts that are slowing down the development. But I know they are just part of the journey. I just try not to get in their way too much, when they happen.
The bottom line is that Steem can be an even better ecosystem than Ethereum.
At the moment of writing this article, Steem was trading at $1. According to the numbers with which I started this article, if Steem follows the growth curve of Ethereum, then in an year we may see Steem trading at $14.
I know it sounds hard to believe. But I also know that Ethereum was $11.90 just a year ago. That I know for sure.
About the unicorns, though, I'm still researching.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me 
You can also vote for me as witness here:
https://steemit.com/~witnesses