Steem is a difficult beast to speculate. It's so different compared to other cryptoprojects.
- Inflation is high. If the price stays same, total market cap will be going up.
- Most of Steem is locked up. That makes liquid market cap very small compared to total market cap.
This can cause wild volatility until speculators start to understand how this works.
We might have some interesting situations, like if the price is falling slowly. If it falls slowlier than inflation, we are in a situation where price is falling but total market cap is rising.
I think you're right about that, although I expect that newfound interest in what is being done with STEEM on the site here will draw enough to counteract the inflation.