Nobody would have believed you three months ago if you told them how steemit would grow so much in so little time.

And in consequence, how the value of STEEM would skyrocket (it did).

I know I did not listen! Being a member of the bitshares community, where the ideological and technological roots of steemit originated, I had an early chance to get in on hoarding STEEM.

Out of prudence, I did not. My bad, for I failed to see the potential in the idea.

But as they say, hindsight is 20/20.

I do not blame anyone, not even myself. With the information I had at that moment, and when taking into account what my financial goals were at that point, it did not make any sense to speculate on STEEM.

That was then!

Holding STEEM is not for the faint of heart. But if you believe the platform will grow massively in the short-term, read on ..

Still here?

A classic posŧ by @aem does a good job of explaining what STEEM, STEEM POWER, and SBD are (and what they are good for).

Armed with that knowledge, you may still very well ask yourself why on earth holding STEEM is a good idea.

Quoting from the post linked above:

(STEEM) Is not meant to be a way to store value in the way that Bitcoin is, it's just a means to buy into Steem (the organisation / website). The total number of Steem doubles each year.

Terrible advice, right? STEEM was not even designed to be used as a store of value. What nonsense is this, then?

Hear me out.

The crux of the matter

As you should know by now, STEEM POWER will take about two years to fully convert back to SteemUSD/SBD, from the moment you elect to power down.

If you believe that steemit.com will continue to gain adoption, then to a certain extent (remember, do not invest more than you can afford to lose - I touch on that subject in a recent post) it makes sense to convert your SBD to STEEM POWER.

As explained in the first linked article, not only will doing that give you more voting power in the platform, and generate ever-growing STEEM POWER, it will also make for bigger value-stable profits, when you finally decide to power down.

However ..

The above is a good strategy for the long-term (two years is equivalent to decades in the crypto-currency space!).

Remember that it takes around two years for your STEEM POWER to power down all the way back to SteemUSD/SBD.

If you believe that steemit.com will continue gaining widespread adoption over the next few months, then it is an interesting bet to make, keeping a few thousand worth of STEEM available.

That way (by holding STEEM), you will have liquidity.

When (and if) the time comes, many options will await you.

And if the bet was right - you will have a lot more money to play around with - right then, not in two years.

Always remember

Do not invest any more than you can afford to lose. None of this is investment advice.

It might be a terrible idea after all and you might end up losing all of your investment!!

Strike a balance

Holding only SBD, only STEEM POWER (as in, converting 100% of your SBD rewards to STEEM POWER), or only STEEM is unlikely to cater to a large group of people.

Nobody knows what the future will bring. Never trust anyone who tells you with certainty that they know this or that will happen, when it comes to investment/speculation (and do not kid yourself, what I am proposing here is pure speculation).

The point of this post is merely to call your attention to the fact - in case you were not aware - that you could -- could -- stand to profit awesomely by leaving some of your steemit earnings in the form of STEEM.

Audentes Fortuna Iuvat

Myself, I am committed to funnel a good 15-20% of rewards into holding STEEM, because I believe the price will explode upwards once again in the near future.

But I do not put in any more than I could afford to lose.