Watching the trend in Steem Power is fascinating. The charts put out by 
As can easily be seen from looking at distribution chart on a given day, the amount of SP (MVests) is still in the hands of a few. This is obvious to anyone who takes a quick glance. What is not so evident is the trend that is taking place.
Over time, we are seeing an adjustment as more accounts start to accumulate Steem Power. This dilutes the reward pool, spreading the weekly payouts over more accounts.
https://busy.org/@arcange/steem-statistics-20190404-en
The last time I could find this was on October 15, 2017 when the chart looked a great deal different.
https://busy.org/@arcange/steemit-statistics-20171015-en
Why is this important?
To start, the total MVest is much different. Back in Oct 2017, there were only 328K MVests total; yesterday there were 395,677. Hence, we see a greater distribution to the other categories.
Also, as the Whale and Orcas have less stake as a percentage of the total, that makes the other accounts more valuable. Over the last few months the total MVests staked dropped from about 411K to the present level. Most of this came from the upper categories.
There is a push taking place in an effort to create more Minnows. This initiative is meant to lift the "middle class" at a faster pace. The early results are encouraging although not without challenges.
One thing she wrote really caught my attention:
One of the problems I see is that we have to many spenders and not enough savers.
https://busy.org/@paulag/make-250-minnows-insights-and-observations-steem-has-a-big-problem
She goes into a number of different reasons pertaining to this and other aspects of Steem. One point I wanted to make is that we do have a lot of people from parts of the world that use Steem, or at least a portion of it, as an income. Certainly, I am not going to besmirch anyone for using their STEEM proceeds to pay bills. This is a part of the Steem ecosystem and also shows how well the system is working. We are here to provide rewards for people's activity, something that does not happen on other social media outlets.
This could be, at least in part, a reason why the change is distribution is slow. A portion of the rewards being used by certain accounts are not ending up as Steem Power. This is tempering the shift.
It is highly unlikely that those at the upper end that are powering down are doing so to put food on the table. A more likely scenario is a combination of profit taking, funding of other ventures or simple diversification. Either way, it is good to see them break through this level.
This is a part of a trend I witnessed for a long time. The percentage of SP held by both the Whales and combination Whales/Orcas is diminishing against the whole. The other categories are amassing more stake.
We could see this level could be only a one or two day thing. One new Orca would put the MVest total back above the 300K level.
Of course, we could look at this another way.
Another few months of could see the middle and lower classes top 100K MVests.
That would be an accomplishment.
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