Why I Am So Optimistic About STEEM: There Is No Bear Market

This might not make any sense but let me ask a couple questions.

Is the Internet in a bull market?
How about Email, is that in a bull or bear market?
SMTP? Flash? HTML5?

To me, this strikes at the core of what is taking place.

Cryptocurrency is not financial in nature. It is technological. Thus, it is a completely different animal.

Email was a technology that became the first global application built on the Internet, which is basically a network of computers.
Cryptocurrency is a technology that became the first global application built on blockchain, which is basically a network of computers.

An email is a transfer of information.
A cryptocurrency transaction is a transfer of information.

Thus, I ask again, is email in a bull or a bear market?

Of course, it is an absurd question; one that does not apply.
Then why do we do it with cryptocurrency?

Because it has a financial component. Then why not email? Estimates are that is worth $100B a year to google (more than 1/3 the size of the crypto market).

The fact that cryptocurrency is traded on exchanges leads people to equate it with other financial assets. In reality, it being traded has no bearing on the technology. It means nothing. The other day I wrote a post about ignoring price action which some people took exception to. Some tried to make the claim that price meant something. Price action has the same correlation as the weather in Jamaica.

This week we find out the regulators are getting wind that the exchanges engaged in price manipulation. Is anyone surprised? The Whales exerted their influence. No I am not talking the STEEM Whales or even the Bitcoin millionaires. I am referring to the real Whales in the world, Wall Street. These are the same ones who manipulated the forex markets. And the gold market. Heck, some people even claim that they manipulated the silver market for the past 30 years.

A $300B market doesn't even require that much money for them to control.

Oh have no fear, the shorts are enjoying themselves. It is a party that is coming to an end. More Whales are going to show up and they are going long. Coinbase is now a registered security dealer with the SEC and is putting together a crypto fund.

Entry fee: $250K Max input: $20M.

Do you think Goldman and JPMorgan are going to sit back and do nothing? How about NASDAQ?

Yet again, that will affect nothing in terms of its technology. Wall Street will run its casino like it always does. They push it up, then push it down. That is the game they play.

Ultimately, cryptocurrency, in general, and STEEM, specifically, come down to two basic questions.

The first:

Do you believe more users will embrace and use this technology in the future?

It is that simple. If the answer is no, then sell the tokens and invest in real estate, the stock market, or put the money under the mattress. Without this belief, there is no point in being in this market.

If you answer yes, then the second question applies.

Is there anything being done that will cause more users to embrace this technology in the future?

This gets to the nuts and bolts of the technological development. It is also where I conclude that since the first of the year, if we are using bull/bear terminology, STEEM is on a major bull run. The development that is taking place is moving ahead at a rapid pace. We are seeing the creation of many applications which could draw people to the STEEM blockchain. At the same time, we are also seeing updates on some other applications that are adding features and enhancing the product.

D.Tube, Dsound, Dporn, zappl, steemhunt, dlive, dmania, and even steemmonsters are just a few of the applications that showed up on the last 10 months or so. Will they pull traffic to the STEEM blockchain? I don't know. It could be them or it could be an application that we will not see for another 6 or 8 months. Someone might be typing away at code on the next big application that thrusts STEEM into the forefront.

Cryptocurrency has two issues right now. The first is that it is not a user-friendly technology. What would it be like if one had to find a private key to send an email? What if that losing that key meant one had no access to his or her emails? Also, consider the idea of only being able to send emails to those on the same network. Have a google account? No sending to yahoo or hotmail customers.

That is the point we are at with crypto.

The other issue is that it is not very secure. We are going to have to see a drastic increase in security along with becoming more user friendly. At the moment, to get the ease of use, i.e. an exchange, one puts the tokens at risk. Move up the scale for security and you will see an added burden. If that key gets out, most coins then can be cleaned out in a matter of seconds. Lost keys, hard drive crashes and an assortment of other technical issues leave one unprotected against loss.

So why am I so optimistic about STEEM with all this going against it?

There are three reasons.

3.5B People

Roughly half the world's population is presently online. The other half of the world is still not connected. This will not be the case in another decade. People like Elon Musk and Richard Branson are going to shot up thousands of low-orbit satellites to blanket the entire planet with Internet coverage. This will bring the other half online. This means there is a huge amount of growth that is going to take place.

The Industry

This is in its infancy. In my estimation, less than 1% of the global population ever conducted a transaction using a cryptocurrency. Since I do not believe this is a passing fad, that also leaves a lot of room for growth.

We are also seeing development that is starting to address the problems I mentioned. Wallets are being created that are easier to use. The same with interfaces to different blockchains. Security is increasing as ease of use is implemented. Interoperability might be around the corner with the introduction of EOS.

Even the old man, Bitcoin, saw upgrades with Segwit and Lightning Network. Everywhere one looks, there is another development.

Smart Media Tokens....

Hivemind; HF20; Substeemits; Condensor; Back-end upgrades; Steempress plugin; the aforementioned applications; mobile apps; automated sign up process; steempeak (didn't know about that one, did you?).

I know, a lot of this is not out yet. Give it time. Many seem to feel the Steemit development team is inept and has no clue what they are doing. I tend not to hear this from people who have a background in coding and development. It appears they understand how long things can take.

Even if that is the case, as @lukestokes pointed out in a post the other day, there are other developers that can be used if the community decides. Also, @timcliff posted how he is using his development skills to add to the blockchain by submitting updates that he does to the Steemit team for consideration.

Not everything needs to fall on their shoulders.

The point of all this is to help people understand how different this truly is. When people lay out money for something, they are accustomed to buying a financial asset. It might be a stock or bond, a derivative such as an option, or a commodity. When buying into crypto, one is actually buying into a technology. There is a difference. A stock is representation of ownership in the company; bonds a lien against the assets of said company. Commodities are as old as dirt and, often come from there.

As technology improves, the number of people using it tends to increase. This takes the value and moves it up. Wall Street will run its casino. At some point, I fully expect them to push the price of STEEM up a great deal. The delay surprised me but that does not mean it is not coming. In another 6-12 months, if Coinbase and Circle are any indication, is probably the time frame we are looking at. Once that hits, all the fun numbers thrown out could start to materialize. We know that when Wall Street starts spending, it is in huge numbers.

While that is happening, my guess is the technology will keep improving. Both the development around cryptocurrency and blockchain keep expanding. 2018, thus far, is a banner year for that. I expect the second half to see it continue at a greater pace.

Once again, do you think more people will embrace STEEM and the STEEM blockchain in the future?

If your answer is yes, then just keep adding SP to your account however you can, and trust in the development of the technology.

There are a lot of really smart people on this blockchain who are developing some incredible things.

And they continue to hack away at code whether the markets are red or green.

If you found this article informative, please give it an upvote and resteem.

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