Well, it's not just Dan and Ned. A lot of the early miners are powering down and selling on the exchanges. The bigger problem is the lack of useful development of needed user features on the site and the lack of any widespread marketing campaign to try to bring users to the platform. If there are enough people wanting to join Steemit because it's a great platform, that would certainly mitigate some of the downward pressures from the sell-offs.

Above anything else, this has to be an attractive platform for bloggers - and that doesn't mean that the attraction must be about potential profits from writing. We need a more diverse, creative, thriving user community with solid interaction. To get that, we need more, better creators of content. In turn, they need to be attracted here by the features of the user interface. If the interface can't attract bloggers, then the rest of it really doesn't matter much. Making money is a great incentive for bloggers, but having an easily accessible and navigable blog that can bring in and retain the average reader/follower is the first step.

First, you do the initial development. Then you bring in alpha and beta testers and correct any issues and make improvements to the interface. Then you market the product to regular users and future investors. We're in step two, but everyone is pretending that we're ready for step three - despite the fact that step two is running into some developmental issues and the initial investors are selling off. You can't get the new users and investors when the existing users and investors are jumping ship - or at least appear to be jumping ship. That's why I've continually stated that we need better communication from the upper echelons of "Steemit Inc."