The Cryptocurrency Markets are Receeding - 3 Reasons to Be Optimistic About Steem Anyway
I’ve been having so much fun the last two weeks in NYC that I didn’t notice until recently that the cryptocurrency market has gone down a lot.
Seeing Steem at $2.24 this morning was a sobering moment. It’s definitely a shock compared to the high valuations of $6+ that we saw in early 2018.
On the other hand, we’re hovering around the previous peak of a steem “bubble” in the summer of 2017:
Compared to how it felt after that price collapsed in the fall of 2017, I’m doing quite well now. Even at a “low” price of $2.50 like it is as I type this post, we’re still doing a bit better than the best price I had ever seen 5 months ago.
Looking at the chart now feels good to me. it’s good so far and if it continues, we will see even higher prices in the future.
I believe strongly in the technology of Steem and what it makes possible - I’m optimistic based on the idea that many people will be joining Steem in coming months.
Reasons to Be Optimistic About Steem
All of the Fundamental Value of Steem is Still Present
Nothing of importance has changed for the worse with regards to the Steem blockchain. While the price fluctuates, the community continues to grow steadily and we are reaching new highs in the Alexa web charts (measuring website popularity) with each week.
According to @penguinpablo’s most recent Steem stats update, steemit.com is currently the 930th most popular website in the world. That is incredible.
The technology of Steem is moving forward as well. We are going to have a test net for Smart Media Tokens soon (more info) which is a big stpe on the path towards the launch of that feature. With SMTs we will gain a much stronger B2B offering from Steem to businesses around the world. This can potentially add huge value to Steem…
Meanwhile the userbase of Steem seems to be more vibrant and active than ever. Our community is our biggest strength, the best in the entire blockchain space, and we continue to outperform all competitors by a factor of ten or more in this area. That’s incredible.
The Best Case Scenario is Extremely Valuable
Even if you think Steem has a low chance of success, it’s worth it to invest your time and money into the platform. That’s because the best scenario for Steem is not a small boost from our current position. The best case scenario is a 100x growth from our current value, or even more.
Steem could become the backbone of the monetized web. All video, music, and written content around the internet can be monetized via Steem-powered services that use a combination of upvotes and direct steem payments.
In the best case scenario, you can do all of the following things:
- Get a discount on everything you buy equal to your 100% upvote strength
- Donate one upvote to charity automatically each day
- Fund small business and personal projects via Steem
- Get loans and credit using Steem Power as collateral
Steem could be a standard way to pay for anything online. This is the best case scenario, and even if it’s only a 2% chance that it happens, the odds make it worth trying. After all many of the less amazing scenarios are still good - so there could be another 50% chance that Steem at least grows a little more from where it is today before it reaches a final stable price.
There’s also the chance of total failure and going to $0. You can never completely eliminate that from anything. But if you believe in the growth potential of steem, the odds are overwhelmingly in your favor to stay optimstic and keep participating here.
It’s a Relatively Low Entry Cost
You don’t need to spend any money to succeed on Steem. I haven’t, at least not anything that I didn’t earn first as Steem before spending it.
Time-wise, it’s a bit of a job but doable alongside other work. You could invest 10 hours per week into Steem and do really well by creating content and engaging with other users. Over the course of a year this is probably enough to gain 1,000+ followers.
Over time as the Steem income picks up and becomes more stable, the idea of an “entry cost” goes away entirely. Instead you have an average hourly wage based on your average Steem earnings per week and your hours worked per week on Steem-related tasks.
Anybody with access to the internet and enough time to carve out some space for Steem work can build a following and a stash of coins. That’s a great reason to stay optimstic about Steem as an accessible and open platform for monetization.
Markets Always Go Down Eventually - Stay Positive
In this crazy world of cryptocurrency, you can’t let the market get to you. The price of Steem may feel low right now, but we’re still doing great. There is a ton of growth to be had, if all goes well, in the coming months and years.
For now the most effective mindset is that of pragmatic optimism. Know that Steem can succeed in a big way and that you can have your share of the success if you do the work.
If you create content regularly and do your best to engage with other Steemians, it will be a great time and eventually a profitable time. And best of all, the market price going down means that you’ll have less competition. Some people stop working on their Steem account as soon as they see the price go down. Don’t be like them.
That’s all I have to say on this topic for now. I don’t talk about the crypto market much, but it felt like a good time to do so. What do you think? How are these recent price drops affecting you?
Yeah, woke up this morning and had a similar experience. Definitely still stoked for the future of Steem, the SMT's, and all to come.
Donating daily votes to charity, AWESOME. Love that. Going to start doing that for sure.
Good post dawggie.
I think crypto markets are experiencing a lot of volatility as volumes and liquidity are so low. This year should be exciting with the launch of the lightning network and EOS going live, as well as numerous other projects. Prices don’t go up forever and even crypto has to have a use case to achieve a decent valuation. The decent coins have thins but many of the Alts don’t and are likely to die off.
Oh yea we are gonns see MANY dead altcoins at some point. I dont think anybody can predict the timing -- but a reckoning is coming.
Thanks @heymattsokol for the update! I think I'm going to focus on the content and keep plugging away. Freaking out at ever dip and rise is never really ever wise. Hey...that rhymed!
Freaking out on the dip is not wise but it's so easy to do!! I think you are right, all we can do is focus on content and community.
Things like this don't scare me for the last point you made in your piece. As long as you don't let these prices, money, FUD, shifts, etc. scare you, now is a good time as any to stack more coins.
On that note, I wanna draft and share a post tonight.
"now is a good time as any to stack more coins" AMEN! If you believe in the long term prospects of Steem, all it is is a discount on coins :-). Good luck on the next post man
Thanks for the write up! It’s quite true that we should engage with steemians more at this time 😀😀
ALWAYS ENGAGE WITH MORE STEEMIANS. Its one of the core keys to all success
Yep, everything I've gotten in crypto is from steemit entirely! I wasn't able to have enough spending cash to really get involved, but now I'm able to divest into a bunch of other things AND pay bills, AND have Steem Power essentially saving more and more value for me. Pretty amazing.
If this continues to be the case, I don't see Steem going anywhere. That's pretty powerful, to be able to just share content and be rewarded for your actions.
This is the kinda positivity the community needs my man ... and let's be real here ... for those of us seeing this as year one of a multi year commitment, crypto markets in general being down matters so infinitely less than my SBD to Steem exchange rate. Which at the moment, is just fine by me. = )
One important thing is to remember to use your upvotes - vote heavier and more often, because most people don't do it enough. It costs you nothing, people love it, and you earn curation rewards.
You don't have to go overboard, but voting power that sits at 100% is wasted earning potential, if nothing else.
A good curation strategy can grow your SP at a 30% APR or better. But worry about a curation strategy later on, just look for things you like and smash that upvote button at least a dozen times a day.
Liberal applications of upvotes throughout your comment section can pay back more than SP (but that rate can be pretty good too).
Great advice, although I might argue that those with low SP (say, less than 5k) may be better off investing that time into content creation / engagement. Once you reach dolphin status tho, 100% agree.
You shouldn't spend too much time worrying about curation, I agree. But you should still do it. The lower your SP, the lower your rewards; but more is more, no matter how much you start with. And of course, upvoting thoughtful replies is just part of interacting with other Steemians.
Beyond that, it's not hard to find and follow a worthy curation trail. The trail I follow spreads votes across Sndbox, Utopian, and Curie content, among others. The votes and the rewards happen automagically.