A Hallowe'en Horror Story

I've been wanting to write a post for about a couple of weeks now:

Steemit IN a decentralized network

but when I tried to sit down and type last weekend, out came a poem from my daybook at school.

And I then had a thought, about Steemit and really all the altcoins in general: Is it a scam? Is it a ponzi? No! It's a cargocult. I collapsed onto my bed, shell shocked, and thought through the details.

Perhaps that legendary time, back in 2009, was historically unique, when money running to hide, post-Lehman as they say, and the novelty of the blockchain created the one-off opportunity for the bitcoin early-adopters. You know, when you could mine 10,000 BTC on a Pentium III in two weeks, allowing for downtime when your mom needed the power to vacuum the landing. And the stories of guys from that time now living in up in Vagas - penthouse, hookers, crack - man, they're all true. I met a guy down in Costa Rica who swore he knew somebody ...

I thought I could title this post Dogecoin, as the barrier. When the marketcap of STEEM falls below that of Dogecoin, Steemit is going to need some serious introspection. But I'm not sure I can type that fast. So what about Bitshares as a title? Ouch, too cruel.

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I think about a post-apocalyptic future for Steemmit. The community will still be here, but many will have to take dayjobs:

@ned will be selling used-cars in Detroit;
@dantheman, hugely talented, will be working in Hollywood, prefecting the animation of the love-scene in the latest Brad Pitt blockbuster, a thin layer of Graphene over all moving parts;
@steem will be selling hair-restorer: I believe it to be genuine, M'am, and I apply it accordingly.

There will still be large number of committed users, happily upvoting each other, although perhaps the whales will have migrated. The top trending post will receive $5.

But then the calm is shattered! The @msgivings account springs back to life, posting a irrefutable post, identifying herself as Anastasia's great-great-great-granddaughter, together with a mea culpa and heartfelt apologies.

The whales awaken from their slumbers and the post is upvoted to July highs, the price of STEEM bounces off the floor and the future is bright. The community glows with good-will and positivity, until:

Horror, horror, horror!

Almost immendiately she starts posting cut'n'pastes from Wikipedia, mixed together with risque photographs lifted from Vanity Fair. Many users weep into their keyboards, accidently hitting POST. One well known whale decides to end it all. He/she/it writes a post entitled My Private Keys, explaining the reasons for walking away. It is a long post, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and at its end, their are the private keys, freely given to the first taker.

The post is hugely upvoted, and the comment thread is long. But nobody reads the post and the keys remain untouched, so that weeks later the whale, sobering up, quickly changes the keys and returns again to silently upvoting, following a patented algorithm.

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Why is the price of Steem falling?

I have two suggestions. The credibility of the community suffered serious damage when @ned flagged @masteryoda, and when @steem flagged @ats-david. This is just my opinion of course, but I enjoyed my summer on Steemit, even though I am now too busy to regularly post, comment, and even upvote, and I would like to express my gratitude by speaking honestly.

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Thank you for reading. @richardjuckes