Steem has seen some stability and rise amid the Bitcoin's unprecedented leaps in December. If you have been keeping track of Steem's price on Cryptocurrency Market Cap website or any exchange, you may have observed that Steem is consistently stable around $1.7 (I started writing this article two weeks ago but deferred it till new year). See the Steem chart below to have a look at its recent performance. It's debatable whether Bitcoin will hold its price and the whole cryptocurrency market will keep its growth intact (it has dropped and then recovered considerably in last two weeks).

Image Source: The top image is created using Canva, a free tool with inbuilt free images.

Steem's recent performance. (Coinmarketcap.com screenshot)

Ever growing cryptocurrency market. (Coinmarketcap.com screenshot)

But as we have seen in the case of Iota, Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero, Dash and many more, the altcoins are raring to make a mark or simply explode. A proof of that is the ever decreasing dominance of Bitcoin's share of market cap. From 87 % in January 2017, it has dropped to just 37 % as of today (see the chart below). Steem is ranked # 36 at the time of writing this. It has shown incredible growth as well to the current price, considering it stayed under $1 for the last part of October and the best part of entire November.

Altcoins on the rise and challenging the big daddy. (Coinmarketcap.com screenshot)

Anyone who bought at the recent price of $0.90 is already sitting at a handsome profit right now. Anyone who bought exactly a year ago has gained 24x. The lucky few who accumulated at $0.07 are enjoying 52x gains already. But is the current price the best Steem can be? I don't think so.

Steem has seen $0.07 low and a $4.10 high last year. Still hugely undervalued.

Update: I don't know where it is going but Steem is flying! (I hope you know it crossed $8 already!)

I am listing 5 reasons why 2018 is the year of explosive growth for Steem. I will encourage you to do your own research before investing your money. My views are based on my knowledge, future events, and excitement about benevolence that Steem economy is going to introduce in the entire globe. Steemit is just one part of this new global economy and it is yet to reach even its minimum potential.

Let's begin!

1. Smart Media Tokens

The CEO of Steemit, @ned (Ned Scott), annouced Smart Media Tokens three months ago. Here's what his statement read:-

After more than 20 months of development and 350,000 users on Steem, I have an important message for you about a new Steem-based protocol I call Smart Media Tokens to allow any and every application to have their own STEEM-like token.

Basically, Smart Media Tokens are Steem blockchain based tokens which will incentivize media content of all kinds; ranging from blogging to video platforms. Applications can be numerous and unlimited. For example, New York Times may decide to create NYT tokens to reward authors and commentators on their online platform, thus massively increasing engagement. Think of video sharing platforms, popular blogs, and media sharing websites using SMTs to incentivize usage of their platforms. The whole paradigm of internet will change forever.

Read: SMTs Whitepaper

Ned talked about why SMTs are being created. But the most interesting aspect of SMTs is the value it brings to Steem; making each Steem more valuable. Watch Ned sharing 5 value driving aspects of SMTs.

https://youtu.be/dJpqb1VHbM0

The best thing about SMTs? Steem will be in more demand and less supply. Anyone who understands market can understand what more demand and less supply can do to a coin. Bitcoin is valuable because it has more demand and a limited.

2. Steem Based ICOs

One of the main reasons why Ethereum went from under $10 to over $700 in one year was its ability to hold ICOs, create ERC20 compliant tokens and create new applications on the Ethereum blockchain. Countless ICOs, tokens and applications have been produced on the Ethereum network. Just see what Steem is doing this year.

Steem will conduct ICOs and the ICO management will raise Steem as fund.
SMTs are Steem blockchain based tokens going to be produced when SMTs are properly launched.
Steem blockchain has already powered great applications like @dtube (Dtube), @utopian-io (Utopian), @zappl (Zappl) @busy.org (Busy) and so many more.

These ICOs will not only increase demand of Steem and lock it down for some time but also cause an epic noise in the world of internet, bring more attention to Steem and Steemit.

Image Source: It would be this simple to conduct ICOs on Steem.

3. Hardfork 0.20.0 "Velocity" (Millions of New Users)

Hardfork 0.20.0 "Velocity" was proposed on @steemitblog six months ago. It was a major announcement but its timeline fell in early 2018 so just a little buzz was created. More talk was about the Hardfork 0.19.0 which happened last year. Enough for history. Here are two massive takeaways from that announcement.

Growing as Big as Reddit

The aim of Steemit is to grow at least as big as Reddit. It may be an information of some value to you that Reddit is the number 8 global website right now as per Alexa rankings (#5 in US). Competing and beating Reddit means truly global dominance. Here's what the proposal laid out.

We want to grow Steem to at least to size of Reddit, hopefully larger. Reddit currently has 234 million unique users a month. Let's assume that if they have a 50% retention rate (quite generous), then they would have signed up 468 million accounts. If we wanted to do the same then it would cost 93.6 million STEEM ($187.2 million at the current price) and 13.5 billion Steem Power in delegations.

And to tackle the issue, Steemit is introducing discounted account creation; a process which will ensure smoother account creation. Which will bring....

Millions of New Users

While concluding the proposal, @steemitblog wrote:-

Steem Velocity is going to be key to bringing millions of users to the Steem ecosystem. Communities and our mobile application are on their way. Development is proceeding well and 0.20.0 will be paramount to getting us prepared for those launches and opening the floodgates for the millions of new users that will get to experience Steem in the next year.

Millions of new users means a massive eruption of the ecosystem and billions of eyeballs on the platform. What it means to Steem is that the supply will be scarce so value of each Steem will move up. Also, more interest in Steem means more investment into Steem. Instead of relying on a few big investors to buy millions of $ worth of Steem to increase its price, Steem will be bought by millions of people in small quantities and still raise the value like big investors do.

4. Highly Secure Mobile Wallet

One of the priorities of early 2018 and late 2017 was availability of highly secure mobile wallet apps for iOS and Android. Development is already under process and apps may be announced anytime soon. It may be announced with "Velocity" hardfork or earlier than that. Let's see how Steem will benefit from it.

Right now, Steem can only be stored on exchanges or in Steemit. With the availability of mobile wallet, Steem would be securely stored on the wallet and would not require use of Steemit website (though securer than most) all the time.
Proper wallet is one of the prime requirements of people who invest in cryptos. Making it available will bring in more investors too.
Just the announcement of Mobile Wallet may spike the price. For most cryptos, it invariably does.

It is yet to be seen when the mobile wallet is made available but my guess is that it will happen within next 1-3 months.

5. Roadmap 2018

Showing the worth of community feedback, @steemitblog requested community input for Steemit Roadmap 2018. The request received huge response and many experienced as well as new users gave their ideas of a better Steemit in 2018. Meanwhile, @utopian-io, a platform for open source contribution, was also introduced as well. It became the default platform to suggest improvements in the Steemit. My first contribution was about improving user retention on Steemit.

As a result of the feedback, Steemit is bringing in more improvements in 2018. Notification system is being improved. UI and UX are going to be improved. Underlying code will be edited to incorporate major improvements as well. Overall, a great year ahead may be anticipated.

Conclusion

There are many more reasons why Steem is going to be big in 2018 I think. For example, the price of SBD is $8.9 and just a $100 post reward means 37.5 SBDs liquid reward (worth $333). SBD has low supply so price is highly volatile despite it being pegged to $1. But I have listed the most exciting and concrete five reason I think would take Steem to moon this year. My prediction is $10 (went past $8 already today 3 January) by March-April and $25-50 by end of this year. Highly ambitious but I have listed my reasons. Again, do your own research before investing any money.

Do you share this Steem dream 2018? Or you are skeptical about it? What are your thoughts and where do you see Steem going this year? Do let others know in the comments below. Resteem for the sake of Steem, rather share this post on your social media platforms to let people know about Steem.