You likely have noticed the sudden price pump on STEEM yesterday. At its peak, STEEM went above $0.40 and close to 8000 sats. It has now stabilized at about $0.30 and 5000 sats.
Here is my little explanation for the pump. It is important to note that my explanation is a pure conspiracy theory and it has absolutely no basis. It is basically just for fun. 😜
My explanation of the pump has an assumption that Justin Sun bought his STEEM at about $0.20 per piece. If anyone has hard evidence to support or disprove my assumption, please share. I made this assumption simply because STEEM price was around that range prior to the announcement of the acquisition. Hence, there is no reason for Justin to buy STEEM at a higher price. He could have bought it at a lower price though, but I doubt it will be much lower.
The other assumption is that Justin Sun is a businessman who doesn't want to make a loss on this investments. He had admitted to this upfront, so this isn't really an assumption 🙂.
Then comes my explanation. Since Steem blockchain is going to be forked and HIVE coins will be airdropped, naturally STEEM price will be diluted post-fork. However, not all accounts will get HIVE coins according to the Hive announcement post,
The only accounts who will not be included in the initial airdrop are those containing the Steemit Inc ninja-mined stake, and those who actively contributed to (and publicly declared support for) the centralization of the Steem Blockchain.
Unfortunately, 
While to most users the total value of your holdings should not deviate too much post-fork since you will get the HIVE coin as well. To Justin, he is looking at a 50% reduction in the value of his STEEM holdings. Hence, it will be in his interest to pump STEEM price and accumulate more STEEM on exchanges. This serves 2 purpose, first, by boosting STEEM price up, he can cushion the impact of the dilution. Say if STEEM price remains at $0.30 at the time of the fork, the dilution of 50% will just let it drop to $0.15. Next, he will also get some HIVE from the STEEM he accumulated so far since the tussle with the witnesses. All these should be able to reduce his potential losses substantially.
Quick TA
Since we are on this topic, allow me to do a simple TA. As you can see, the buying pressure is dissipating a little right now on the 4H chart. Hence, STEEM price against BTC is retracing. I think the price will drop to the 23.6% fib retracement level which happens to be in the range between the 21 SMA and 21 EMA.
After which, it should push up again to a level which is around $0.30 in USD. If BTC remains stable at this $6k price range, that will be about 5000 sats.
In summary, STEEM pump because Justin Sun is accumulating and trying to protect his investment. Inevitably, this created some FOMO and probably led to further buying pressure from normal market participants. From a TA perspective, I see a trading opportunity.
Again these are just my speculation and not investment advice 😝. Of course the STEEM pump could be due to excitement over the Hive blockchain. In any case, always do your won due diligence and research for the investments you are going to make.
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This article is created on the Steem blockchain. Check this series of posts to learn more about writing on an immutable and censorship-resistant content platform:
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