This morning I woke up to 10 cent STEEM.
We are not far from the ATL of 2017 now.
It made me think a lot about Steem and how it changed over the years.
Nothing is the same about Steem compared to the low of 2017 when it was just Steemit.com.
For a long time, I invested in STEEM because you could empower your own account/blog with it.
But after #newsteem this all changed and that reason is now gone, nobody will buy STEEM to empower their own blog.
And it's probably worse, because now, for a user of Steem, because it's not necessary to acquire STEEM to earn STEEM they won't. And later with RC pools, there is no reason to acquire STEEM at all. Not to earn and not to use Steem.
I'm not saying it's bad. (In fact, I think it's awesome that we will be the only blockchain that users can use for free. It's the only way we will get mass adoption).
I'm just saying that THAT reason to buy STEEM is gone.
Yet other reasons are now in place and I do believe these to be better longterm reasons that will benefit Steem more then what we had.
So, lately, I'm thinking a lot about who will buy STEEM if not for users to empower themselves?
The only two parties I can see buying STEEM are developers/communities or investors. That's it.
Developers/communities need SP to fill an RC pool and investors will want to lease out their SP/RC's to anyone that needs it or maybe use it to reward users they see as adding value to the chain.
There are some other reasons to buy STEEM. It gives you more influence over the witnesses and SPS proposals and you can direct some more STEEM from the daily reward pool to wherever you want.
But I don't think the last reason through upvotes will cut it, just on its own, to get the STEEM price up.
I mean, when you look at the most successful app on the blockchain (Splinterlands) they not even use upvotes to attract users. They just made a great product and they use Steem in a genius way.
Splinterlands does need access to RC's to work and that's the only REAL reason for them to invest in STEEM, but I doubt any user that plays Splinterlands ever invested in Splinterlands because they might get a small upvote from the Splinterlands team.
Here's what I think is happening.
A current reason to invest in STEEM (self-empowerment) has been taken away with #newsteem and a new reason has been created (RC delegation).
But the problem is that the RC delegation is not out yet.
Steem investment is therefor in LIMBO and it takes a future vision to see what this thing can become, but it also involves a lot of but's and ifs.
I talk about this, my own Steem investment journey of 3,5 years, the emotion of investing, my next investment target, and many more things in my vlog.
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