US economy is doing good... EU economy is doing OK-ish (actually it is doing fantastic in my part of the EU but there are other parts with pretty shitty output so... "ish") and therefore there is general disinterest in cryptos from general public. The main weakness of Steem is how poorly it is marketed. Everyone knows Bitcoin, most people in my age know Ethereum or at least know it is a crypto currency, many at least heard about Monero, Dash or Litecoin... but Steem? It is like if it was released yesterday. Nobody knows about it and more often than not I get the response "yea that is where my games are"....