Have anybody heard about Chiliz (87), Seele (78), Karatgold Coin (69), Silverway (54), Luna (51), Synthetix Network Token (48) and finally Alibaba Coin/ABBC (47)?
Steem has fallen at 89 ranks in the CMC though its total marketcap has not changed much in last couple of months since it is hovering between 13-16 cents.
One of the reasons for falling behind the ranking is that newer coins (i.e. mostly shiny ICOs) taking places above Steem. The above mentioned coins are the newer craze that have at least $50M marketcap.
Usually, they fall quickly in a week or two, new ones take their place. They are mostly based on ERC20 tokens. Therefore, it is easy to add on any number of exchanges. To be included in CMC, the coin needed to be traded at at-least two exchanges.
ICOs with little bit of financial strength can easily bribe few exchanges to add their coin with little costs. They can do some wash sells and buys. Hola, their coin now have marketcap of more than $50M and rank within the 100.
It is very similar to few 
Some of these projects has interesting ideas and proposals. Most do not have the most viable product. Even if they release MVP, very few people will use their product. Therefore, high initial ranking and marketcaps are mostly fake and made up.
For example, ABBC which ranks 47 is going to be the next Bitconnect. It claims to build a crytpocurrency with facial recognition. It is a fancy way to market you scamcoin. In fact, in China and many other countries, there are Apps that uses facial recognition to make payments. The innovation is nothing of a big deal. However, the group behind is successful in attracting lots of speculative traders who keep the coins in Pump and Dump mode all the time. The biggest secret of the group is that they were able to add ABBC in large number of exchanges, created large volumes and attracted opportunist traders.
What Steem leaders and community learn from it? Volume matters! Exchanges matters! Imagine there is no coin based on social media. It lunched as hot ICO, it will immediately rank above current Steem's rank being ERC20 token and enlisted on many exchanges.
We already have an example, Theta (68) has been marketed as next Youtube since an ex-Youtube founder is in the advisory board. It has more volume than Steem even without MVP. In fact, Steem once had Youtube killer in 
Steem has exchange problem, volume problem and image problem. Steem's developments are mostly reflected back to its own ecochamber hardly reach outside.
Steem needs serious marketing and rebranding campaign, otherwise, it will struggle simply not being in top 100 coins. Though it sounds silly, this is how external investors perceive a coin. DOGEcoin is much better than Steem in developments or usage since it ranks at 29 while Steem at 89!
Disclaimer: This opinion is not a financial advice, it my personal perspective and opinion. Please seek professionals for financial decisions. This opinion is only for educational purpose.
Image sources: Most images are open sourced (e.g. Pixabay, Wikimedia etc.) with Creative common license. Some images are used with due courtesy to respected owners.
Thanks for reading.
Cryptominer , occasional trader and tech blogger since 2013
