Steemit has been a pyramid scheme from the beginning. 0.01% ove the people own over 80% of the coins. It was a secret launch only announced to a few people. Then launch failed a day later and restarted so certain people could get more coins. People like JamesC, Ned and Blocktrades delegate out millions of dollars of power for free to their buddies.. a majority of the voting power on the platform is in the hands of 5 people. They have looted over 200 million last year between only a few of them.. and no they did not invest anything to get that SP.. it was mined and some of it exploited out of the system for free.