If you take a look at the home page of coinmarketcap.com, on the top right corner, the total number of crypto projects displayed at the moment of writing these lines is...fasten your seat-belts plz... 4781. Can you even believe it?
The reason I am saying "at the moment of writing" is because not long ago, I had made a similar post to this one, and I am pretty sure that this number was not even close to 2000. It seems to me that dozens of them pop up every single day, so I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of this post this number is completely different.
Does that necessarily mean that every single one of them has a bright future? Well, quite the opposite actually. Hundreds of these might be scams while some others are listed on some unknown exchange...somewhere, so the risk of one losing their money is bigger than potential gains, since the way they usually perform is a huge pump and a massive dump right after.
What that means is that our beloved Steem is a drop in that ocean...of...opportunities(?)
Of course there is also a big number of projects that have both, big and active communities behind them but also are legitimate. Steem in my opinion falls into this group of projects. You may think that I am biased towards Steem, which might be true since I am both active and invested in it. And it really saddens me to watch it sitting at the 86th spot of the rankings because only those who are fortunate enough to be active can understand the potential it has, but it is what it is...
Many of us have repeatedly stated that all those innovations and the progress being made isn't reflected in the price. And this is true.
Just look at the facts. Back in December 2017. Regardless of where one was invested into or if that particular project was legitimate or not, everything kept going up, we lacked in so many areas compared to what we can accomplish if we take advantage of the capabilities of this chain. Yet the price was going up like crazy....From 0.80$ to 8$+ in less than a month...
Was there Steem-engine around here back then? NO
Were there Tribes maybe? NO
Was there bid bot abuse and gaming / milking the system? YES
There was no Splinterlands, not as many new interfaces as we have now, nobody seemed to care about anything...including Steemit.Inc itself. Yet the price was going up and up and up.
And then the bear woke up...and prices started dropping like bricks. From 8$+ to 0.12$ is a massive drop. Yet we are alive. And while this dive could have killed many other projects Steem is alive. Actually it is more than alive. It is evolving and a lot of great things are happening in Thailand as we speak.
And whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. This bear market actually came right on time to make us realize what is it that we are doing wrong and fix it. To start thinking outside of the box. You heard 
Tokenization of the web is the greater picture, and as soon as everything is ready, I suspect that this place will be overcrowded. What? NO? Oh yes it will be, because for the first time ever, Steem will be able to provide something that no other competitor out there can.
Will that be enough? I guess time shall tell...But judging from the reactions of those who attended the Steemfest in Thailand, some of which are heavily invested in Steem and at the same time are big influencers, like 
History in the making...and we are part of it.
Have a great one people.
Cheers.