If you've been vigilant in checking your payouts, you've probably noticed a decline in the percentage of the rewards being paid out in SBD. I've made a couple posts on my personal feelings about SBD before, but I will elaborate a little bit more here and explain why I think it's a good thing.
STEEM Backed Dollars are supposed to be an equivalent to a USD-backed crypto. We can think of this like a Tether (USDT) that is pegged to the US dollar. This dollar is what we typically see when you look at posts and see rewards and such. Honestly, this is the only thing they are used for IMO (obviously please correct me if there's another use, but I haven't found/seen one).
On December 8th, 2017, the SBD peaked at a price of $18.71. Keep in mind, STEEM only peaked at $9.25. What made this jump so much is the short supply obviously. When you got paid out in the past, part of that was in fresh, newly produced SBD's. When you have the limited supply from slow daily production and people are wanting to such up cryptos, prices to up.
I've read that SBD's were coded in to be phased out. It looks as though now this phase-out is happening. There are no more rewards being paid out in this currency. Feel free to check your own or any post that has rewards pending, and you'll see none of it is pending in SBD. Additionally, look at your previous rewards see that none have been awarded as payout in SBD. We watched the payments in this reward method shrink slowly, and now we are completely done.
Again, my opinion is that this is a good thing. One of the other positives in my mind is that payments will now be backed to the USD (which is kind of technically like SBD). With the falling prices of STEEM, rewards will be paid out in more STEEM. Sure, curation is less since the price is lower, but I'm still optimistic about this being a positive.
It was a great run, but now it's time to enjoy the great crypto that is STEEM. STEEM is my only long term holder at this point. It's so cheap and is so great with so much upside potential. There's a use case besides money transfer -- which in my opinion -- makes this crypto a huge winner. China ranked it in their top 5. Let's go....FULL STEEM AHEAD!!!