STEEM to the MOON! - My Top Crypto Picks for 2018!

Hey everyone, welcome back to the short series I’m doing about my cryptocurrency investment portfolio. Today we’ll talk about STEEM. STEEM is my largest holding in the crypto space (currently weighting at ~12% of my portfolio and growing) and is by far my favorite crypto for a variety of reasons.

I’m sure most of you already have a pretty good grasp of STEEM, but I’ve found that many people actually don’t have a very good grasp of the inner workings of STEEM, Steemit, SBD, Steem Power, Vests, etc. So, I’ll start by defining the different currencies within the STEEM ecosystem. Note that this is not a comprehensive review of each, but rather just an overview to create some context around STEEM:

1. STEEM
2. Steem Power (SP)
3. Steem-Backed Dollars (SBD)

1). STEEM

STEEM is the driving currency behind Steemit and the STEEM blockchain. STEEM is currently valued at $7 (up more than 200% since the start of 2018). STEEM is the main subject of this discussion and is the cryptocurrency that I am by far the most optimistic about.

2). Steem Power (SP)

Many people are actually confused about the true definition of SP. SP is not a currency, it simply represents vested STEEM. Vested STEEM is that which is powered up and takes 90 days to withdraw (via 13 payments). Steem Power (SP) is what allows us to interact with the STEEM blockchain and determines our upvote value, our voting for witnesses and much more.

SP has continued to be in high demand. Over half a million dollars worth of *LIQUID STEEM was recently pulled off the market and powered up. The demand of vested STEEM (a.k.a. SP) is important to understand when trying to evaluate the STEEM blockchain. SP will come to play an even larger role and come under higher demand when the release of SMTs is upon us because in order to interact with SMTs, one will need to use their SP.

3). Steem-Backed Dollars (SBD)

Steem-Backed Dollars or SBDs are a dollar-pegged currency. That is, their value are supposed to be represented as 1SBD=$1. Notice that SBD is actually at $9 right now. There’s been a variety of explanations about why this happened, the best explanation I’ve found to date is that SBD rose in value due to it being listed on a Korean exchange and then subsequently being pumped because of its extremely limited supply.

Dan Larimer also stated that SBD can theoretically have any value above $1. Remember though that as the price of STEEM rises, so do the payouts on Steemit. As the payouts on Steemit get larger and larger, more SBD is printed and this causes downward pressure on the price of SBD. With the rising STEEM price right now, I would not be surprised if SBD started to trend downwards.

Please correct me if I made any mistakes in my description of SBDs, I’ve researched a lot about the situation, but I’m no expert.

Why invest in STEEM? My outlook for 2018:

I’m expecting STEEM to rise significantly in 2018 for a lot of reasons:

1. Growing demand for Steem Power (SP)
   1. Leases
   2. Liquid Steem being converted into SP
2. Upcoming Release of Smart Media Tokens(SMTs)
3. Earn More STEEM by Powering Up
4. Community
5. Ripe for Adoption

1. Growing Demand for Steem Power (SP):

Something that has become very clear in recent weeks is that the demand for SP is continuing to grow at a rapid rate. Lease delegations and Liquid STEEM are being bought up at an absurd (but awesome) rate. Put simply, this is great because it shows confidence and usage of the STEEM blockchain. The more confidence and usage behind STEEM, the greater the price will rise.

2. Upcoming Release of Smart Media Tokens(SMTs)

SMTs deserve a whole separate post on their own (actually a series of posts) and I'll get to making those posts soon. SMTs, in my opinion, will radically change the content industry. ANY blog, website, news outlet, business, etc. can potentially benefit from the issuance of an SMT. Imagine if a blog like fourhourworkweek or a news outlet like the WSJ decided to issue a token via SMT.

The usage just one of these outlets would bring would radically drive the price of STEEM upwards because STEEM will still be the base currency of their SMT. Steem Power will still hold influence over their usage of the STEEM blockchain even though they are issuing their currency "separately". Think ERC20 tokens and Ethereum as a real-world example of this.

3. Earn More STEEM by Powering Up

Just the prospect of earning more STEEM by holding Steem Power is awesome. The benefits of holding SP are so amazing that it just doesn't make sense to not power up, in my opinion. I'm working on getting as much SP as I can right now!

4. Community

You're already on Steemit, so you know how strong the community is behind the STEEM blockchain. Anyone involved in this community is laser-focused on the success of Steemit and STEEM. I think I can leave it at that.

5. Ripe for Adoption

Unlike the vast majority of cryptocurrencies, Steemit and STEEM are relatively easy to use and obtain a basic understanding. I got both my brother and my mom using Steemit and neither of them are very technically inclined. There's still a few rough moments and ridiculous questions here and there, but overall, they've learned how to use Steemit like pros in just the past 2 weeks. They're starting to tell their friends about it and the onboarding process is relatively easy for them to replicate without me, which really says something about STEEM in and of itself.

The creation of interfaces like Busy.org and Steemit allow this blockchain to be one of the easiest, if not the easiest, to use and interact with.

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So there you have it, my reasons for buying and hodling STEEM until I die 🤩🚀. I hope you learned a few things about STEEM and I hope you also consider learning even more about this amazing blockchain and its potential to massively disrupt every content business in existence.

Disclaimer: This is not investment advice and is for entertainment purposes only. Thank you!

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Thanks for reading! Here's the Question of The Day, don't forget to post your answers in the comments!

QOTD: What's your favorite part about the STEEM blockchain? How many of your freinds/family members have you put on to Steemit?

If you haven't yet told any of your friends/family members about Steemit, I challenge you to go out and tell 3 of them about it and get at least 1 to commit to joining this amazing community!

-Khaleel