Dear Steemit friends,

we had a huge increase in price of STEEM since March 17. There were several big jumps in price:

1. JUMP - March 2017

price low March 16th 2017

price high March 18th 2017

2. JUMP May 2017

The high of March remained until the beginning of May.

price low May 3rd 2017

..and rocketed again.

price high May 9th 2017

3. JUMP June 2017

The high of May remained until the beginning of June.

price low May 31 2017

..and rocketed again to a unhealthy bubble!

price high June 9th

4. The Crash.. Correction.. What?

The bubble bursted and the price of STEEM was falling hard.

price low July 16th

The price remained stable around $1 until now with some fluctuations for about 2 months,

price September 26th

If we look at the heavy ride we see a bit of a consolidation. The big rallye in the whole crypto market is now over for about 3 months. But the astounding thing about that is we saw not a hard crash of the whole market like in the years before. What we see is a stable level for STEEM and also for Bitcoin, Ethereum and other leading currencies.

huge increase of price in just 6 months

Even with the huge decline of -70% in the 1 month we had an staggering increase from $0.07 to now of $1.10 which is 15.7 times higher in just 6 months! I was not invested in spring, because i didn't even know about Steemit and the crypto market at all! It's now about 4 months ago that i looked deeper into that market. I'm used to the stock market but that was a whole new world for me and because i'm not a daytrader i recognized what pump & dump frenzies going on each day and studied that live!

Note: @yoganarchista made a point on that new user base in a comment. She thinks users like me are the fundamental sign that the growth of the crypto market is real. It is recognized by as a new stage of concsciousness for the crypto market from many educated persons beside all the buzz around

What surprised me is the now longer lasting consolidation phase (if it's one). Even with the spreaded FUD by big banks we saw not a hard landing, just a correction and in the long term just a tiny hickup!

What's next?

If i look at my Steemit experience which lasts now for a bit more than two months then i can say the system works. I see many recognized Steemians fighting for Steemit to build a lasting social media platform which could have the same appeal like a Facebook. I strongly support the movement, because the whole ecosystem is much more user-centric than just posting content for data collection of a company.

The positives

• important apps are evolving from proof of concepts to fully fledged usable products, what i see as enduser are especially SteemConnect2.0, DTube, DSound which supports the ecosystem of Steemit massively.
• incentivized system of Steemit which motivates users to give great content and get payment for - some Steemian can make a living just by posting quality content, that's amazing opportunity! ..but at the same i wanna show also a flipside i experienced
• well thoughtout system which works since the beta release with many options for users to act as quality poster, upvoter, commenter, curator, developer. I think there are many roles for each character to choose from.

Steemit makes fun to share things you like and get feedback AND a payment!

The negatives

First i don't like to write something negative because i had many positive experiences in the last 2 months and so i think at the same time always about solutions, what i experienced recently

• more than $20 for just a photo of a strawberry cream tart without any narrative - the question is "Who get such high payouts?" It could happen to Steemians with high reputation over 60 what i saw but maybe to everybody who votes for himself with high SP (the latter was not the case in this example). Basically that's ok because the community always decides what's valuable and what's not. If many like cream tarts than the author should be paid for that. But when i see a multi-page post packed with valuable content, self-made pictures by a Steemian who is not a popstar but gives many times more value to our community and get $0 or just a few dollars and a very similar post by a Steemian with reputation greater than 60 or simply why he caught more attention gets $100+ then i ask the question:

"How do we ensure that such great work gets what it deserves?"

and the differences for similar great content are not so huge. I think it's more an issue from a marketing standpoint for Steemit if such things happen. There are people who think they could also post cream tarts and in the end recognizing it's not enough (spam flood) and there are people who are annoyed or disappointed because they want more. The goal should be always that freedom is maintained and everybody get something back for value.

Luckily engaged Steemians do many good things, @curie is a great thing i heard from my contest post and supports for example scientific posts. @ocd is another great intitiative to support the minnows (i got an entry and was very happy thanks to @howtostartablog) and also many other individuals in the higher ranks do like @barrydutton, @lukestokes. But they cannot support all Steemians with high quality content. And that's just sometimes the pain for me. If i see someone who walked out here because he got almost nothing back for many high quality content posts then i'm concerned because we need such great people to build a lasting Steemit. Maybe you say:

"He should not give up so fast, that's just lame!"

You may right, but that could be the easy case with the "cream tart experience" above by such user. Think about someone publishes a really good science post and got nothing and another one get $20+ for the cream tart.. 😏 I'm talking not about the bot creators who just spam users or the copycats which are always good attended by @cheetah (explained here), but the ones who have codex for quality content with highest standards.

I'm very thankful to Steemians who don't use their popularity and reputation with such exaggeration and show the newcomers and minnows that quality content always counts. And i'm the one who also encourages everybody to be persistent even if the first 5 posts get nothing and also if the next 5 posts get nothing. From my experience it needs time to get some attention and find friends here on Steemit but it works! And i hope and think the "cream tart experience" will solve itself due the community.

It's also a question of balance between whales, orcas, dolphins 🐬 and minnows of the Steemit platform which is crucial for the long term success. From what i know the last fork initiated a new reward system with linear increase, which is much fairer for newscomers and intented to build a more social platform for mass adoption. That was definitely a good move from my perspective and shows the flexibility of the platform to adapt to new circumstances.

Finally let's look on a Alexa data analysis:

source: https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/steemit.com

The chart above could mean nothing. It shows a declining number of unique visitors on Steemit from what i understand. That could be a natural reaction to the rally in the beginning of the year. Many who tried do make a quick buck on Steemit could have failed and now leaving the platform in favor of more persistent users who just discover the opportunities. Finally i think we see after the dip a more sustainable growth without all the buzz around.

source: https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/steemit.com

US is leading by far with about 30%! The visible countries are just 51% percent of all traffic, to see more you must pay for the service. If i see the small payouts with the topic "cn" and "china" there are huge opportunities if people there get used to it or are allowed to use it. But the following is i think..

.. the most important number!

source: https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/steemit.com

3 months ago @shenanigator published a great post with the Title "Steemit Is Almost A Top 5,000 Site Worldwide! Traffic Is Still Exploding!" and he also published number from Alexa site. Let's compare

The post was published around June 2017

Global Rank: 6,302
Rank in United States: 1,802

The ranking results from a calculation over the last 3 months based on visitors to the site.

That means Steemit gained 4,190 places worldwide! and 414 places in the United states in just 3 months!. From my understanding that's a huge increase in reputation. But remember "The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself." 😉

BUT let's look to another post from @steemrollin last year with the Title "Steemit Surpasses Reddit In User Engagement!!! - Closing In On Top 10,000 in US Traffic Ranking!"

Global Rank: 21,589
Rank in United States: 10,499

The Global Rank has shrinked to 1/10 compared to last year and also nearly the US rank in this range! Now i convinced myself more than you! 😎

Simply Wow!!!

@jerrybanfield predicts a STEEM price of $10 in the next 6 months from what i know. That would be great! 😁 Is that realistic? I don't know the fundamentals behind such high growth 🔮, but if i look back in 2017 everything is possible! Just one great catalyst can lead to a price jump. For example:

• if China wakes up
• SteemConnect2.0 unleashes a fully new user experience with new comfort and security standards
• many professional artists recognize their opportunities on DTube and DSound
• content in Steemit grows so valuable that it attracts the attention of investors
• Bitcoin rockets again and pulls the whole crypto market up
• a much more improved mobile experience

many possibilities, notice that were my best case scenarios but as the stats show further growth is absolutely probable scenario.

"What do you think about STEEM and Steemit for the next months ahead?"

STEEM ON!

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Exciting times ahead steemit friends!

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