Steemit has been experiencing some serious user growth over that last couple months, in fact January was a record month for user growth. Check this out-https://steemit.com/steem/@honeydew2002/month-over-month-steem-steemit-stats-wow-2-million-transactions
Coincidentally Steem Dollars price exploded in value a couple months ago, are the two connected? I would say yes. SBD's were designed to act as a currency for the Steemit website and is supposed to be pegged to the USD. One Steem Dollar should be worth one USD but it trades on open markets like Bittrex and more importantly a South Korean exchange called Upbit. Upbit listed
Steem and SBD in late November, Steem Dollars exploded in value shortly after and Upbit is responsible for over 80% of the current SBD trading volume. Look at this chart showing SBD price right after its listing on Upbit(red oval).
South Koreans have pumped the price, pure speculation, but it has been in a steady decline since its peak on Dec 18th.
The high SBD price has directly effected the payout scale for posts on Steemit. Since the system recognizes SBD as one dollar it pays out the quantity of SBD to amount 50% of your payout accordingly. If your post is worth 10 bucks you'll receive 5 SBD at the payout rather than the market value of about one SBD, this gives the author triple the rewards than before the Upbit listing. Because of this everyone who's posting is receiving payouts in 50/50 SBD to Steem, which has inflated SBD supply 125% in the last two months. Check out this post for an in depth review of this. https://steemit.com/steem/@buggedout/steem-dollar-will-fall-to-usd1-usd-here-s-why
Steemit has added 250,000 new user accounts in the last 2 months, growing by a staggering 55%. So what are Steemians doing with their time? Here's a comparison of posts vs. votes.
Posts
Votes
You can see how posts continue to grow exponentially, while votes have flattened out. I think this is because of the SBD price and you have to post to earn them.
It looks like the pump in SBD has been a significant factor in Steemit's explosive user growth in the last 2 months. Thankfully Steem is also worth far more which directly relates to Steemit users making more money. I don't think SBD can maintain its premium price because of it's inflation rate. Steem currency has a bright future and will likely continue to rise, providing Steemians with a steady growth in income. If SBD does drop closer to its one USD peg, Steemit user growth will likely slow down. What do you guys think the effect will be?
G'day
