A few people have recently been asking me on steemit chat what my long term plan was and if I was powering down. Up until this point I was powering down a small amount because my long term goal since the beginning was to become the first steemit sponsored college degree on the site. I have been taking the majority of the steem dollars I earn and have been putting them to pay off my college loans. However with the recent drop in price of steem and for a few other reasons I will list below, I have stopped powering down. At this point in time I see the better option to wait and hold my steem power as it grows. The passive income I was getting was nice, but I think long term it will be much better to wait, here is why.

Interest Rate On Steem Power Is Falling Fast

If you don’t know this, you are actually paid interest on your steem power for holding it in your account. The interest rate when I first started was around .075% a day, but now only a month and a half later is only around .058%. The interest rate on steem power is falling which overall is going to lower inflation and the selling pressure on steem in the future. If you are worried about the price of steem falling in the short term, hold onto your steem power until the interest rate goes to nearly 0% and we will see less selling pressure. This is because the amount of steem being created is getting smaller, so there is less to drop on the market , also in my opinion people will want to vest now before it costs more steem power to do so and they could get the interest while waiting.

Amount Of Users And Transactions Is Growing At A Steady Pace

We are now, at the time of writing this post, at around 78,000 users and growing. Every new user that is brought into the eco system puts potential buying pressure on the steem currency so they vest it and can earn curation rewards. We have already seen a few users buy massive amounts of steem and vest them to gain a more powerful account for the future. I think it is a matter of time until more users start to do this as well. Obviously as long as the price of steem is falling there are more willing to sell than buy, but this could quickly change. I was always ready for a price correction after the huge spike up to $4 and my target is still somewhere around 50 cents per steem just because of how much of a supply is being created, but I don’t have this outlook for the long term.

I Am Finally Seeing Tangible Curation Awards

Early on as a minnow, it was sort of hard to justify holding onto my steem because the main point I would do so would be to get curation rewards , which at that point were non existent. However as my account has grown into more of a dolphin, I have now been able to get a steady stream of curation rewards which makes me feel like im part of the community regardless of how much I am making. Being able to upvote people even just 20 cents feels intuitive and Im not looking to give that up any time soon.

Developers Are Hard At Work Making Changes And Being Involved

Finally what might be the most important reason why I am no longer powering down is because I see the developers working and engaging with the community to make the experience a better one for all. Rather than just cashing out and leaving, they are staying for the long term. Sure they have to cash some out to pay for expenses and salaries, but it doesn’t seem like it is a race to the bottom for them like many others have stated.

Together these are the reasons why I stopped powering down and wont power down any further in the near future. Overall I think that if I continue to power down my steem power I will regret it in the long run and I see this as only the beginning for steem, and those who hold their steem power will be rewarded. I will still continue to use my steem dollars to pay for my college loans, but it does not mean that I am abandoning the system at all. If you guys have your own reasons why you aren’t powering down or why you are, leave them in the comments so we can discuss it!

-Calaber24p

Image Citations:
The first image was created by @ tuck-fheman, quote is by Hive account@fyrstikken.
The graphs are from steemle.com and were screen capped by me
Final image is a screen cap of a google hang out with the developers.