The SMTs run on Steem blockchain just like ERC-20 tokens run on ETH but Steem chain is specialized into building Social Media apps "proof of brain". Think of it like a real life metal link chain carrying buckets of water to its destination. The SMT is the buckets and Steem blockchain is the chain that carries them. In ETH contracts and transactions must paying gas fees to use Ethereum's underlying blockchain infrastructure. In Steem or EOS tokens (SMT's) must use bandwidth, which requires holding a certain amount of Steem power. As a fairly early on investor into ETH it took me about 6 months to understand why ultimately builder blockchains such as ETH, EOS, Steem will have much more value than the app tokens themselves and the currencies such as Bitcoin, since they enable a Web 3.0 infrastructure for future apps to be built on. Appics is built on the Steem blockchain but tokenized with its own coin. If successful Appics value would vastly increase but so would Steem value to a lesser extent. However, if many successful SMTs are launched Steem token should ultimately gain more value than any of its tokens. We can already see this playing out in real life with Ethereum. To date I don't believe there's any ERC-20 token that's outperformed the price of ETH over the last year. Personally I would rather be making a bet on the entire ERC-20 eco-system rather than just one tokens success or not. I believe the same to be true for Steem once SMTs offically launch. I believe this is why @ned is so keen on successful launch of SMTs.