A few hours ago, 
The Real Inflation Rate
While perusing the information in the Bluepaper, something really stood out. Much of the information there I knew from scattered sources and from my activity as a witness, but this one was something that I didn't quite internalize, at least until now:
The rate that new tokens are generated was set to 9.5% per year starting in December 2016, and decreases at a rate of 0.01% every 250,000 blocks, or about 0.5% per year. The in ation will continue decreasing at this rate until it reaches 0.95%, after a period of approximately 20.5 years.
That changes everything!
I can't believe I didn't actually process this in a proper manner when it was announced, back in December (I think it was hardfork 16, if I'm not mistaken). I was probably under the impression of the huge inflation in the previous version (something like 200% per year) and I didn't pay attention to the fine print. Alas, it's always the fine print that changes everything, and not only in that mortgage contract you sign with the bank.
Let me explain.
If Steem would have a 9.5% fixed inflation rate per year, it means (in a very simplistic way) that there won't be any incentive to actually get a hold of the token, because there will always be more printed next day. It would be a predictable, never-ending flow of tokens. And when you have a predictable, never-ending flow of tokens, the price usually plummets. It happened in the fiat world more than once (see Zimbabwe, for an example in our present days).
But if the inflation actually drops in time, that means the never-ending part is eliminated. Next year we'll have an inflation of 9%, the year after 8.5%, and so on, until we stop at 0.95%. A 1% inflation rate is way more palatable and more viable, economically speaking.
What that mens for the layman?
It means your STEEM is more valuable than you think, because, in time, there will be less and less of it. Yes, it may take 20 years until that happens and yes, even in 20 years there will still be a 1% inflation supply that could provide some liquidity.
But the bottom line is that now is cheaper to get STEEM. The key word here is cheap.
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