In the absence of historical data on Steemit's global variables, I have taken on the task of collecting information over the last 5 days to analyze the growth of STEEM and the VESTS rewards generated by the posts (for those who don't know what VESTS are don't worry, I'll explain it right here). This is of great importance as the HardFork 0.20 of Steemit approaches, which will mean an even bigger growth of the platform and therefore will have important consequences as much in the price of STEEM as in the VESTS generated by the users.

VESTS going up and down

The VESTS are directly connected to STEEM POWER. Each time a user votes to a post new VESTS are generated and added to a fund called PENDING. After 7 days these VESTS are distributed according to the different steemit reward calculations and the total amount of VESTS increases, as we can see in the image. In this sense we could think that the total amount of VESTS increases indefinitely as new content is generated. However, this is not entirely true, each user has the option to make both POWER UP or POWER DOWN. When you POWER DOWN what the system does is destroy VESTS in exchange for STEEM. And when POWER UP its does the opposite, new VESTS are created in exchange for sending STEEM to a common pool.

If we collect information on the total amount of VESTS during a period we will find the following:

As we can see this total of VESTS increases and decreases unpredictably, and the great changes that are observed there are due to large amounts of VESTS that have been made POWER UP or POWER DOWN.

On the other hand, it is important to analyze the VESTS that are frozen in PENDING waiting their respective 7 days to be delivered to the users. If we collect the PENDING REWARDED VESTING SHARES of the last 5 days we will find the following:

PENDING REWARDED VESTING SHARES reflects the amount (and quality) of posts in the last 7 days. If in the last 7 days many posts are generated the pool increases (because more VESTS are generated than drained). On the contrary, if in the last 7 days few posts are generated this total fund decreases (because fewer VESTS are generated than those drained for rewards).
And what do we find in the figure? That little by little these PENDING REWARDED VESTING SHARES are increasing. And this is mainly because the number of STEEMIT users is growing.

--- It will grow at a higher rate when Hard Fork 0.20 arrives! ---

Steems growing at an annual rate of 11.2%

On the other hand we have the STEEM coin. This unlike the VESTS has a controlled growth, is very similar to the mining of the Bitcoins, although in this case this function is observed by the witnesses. Since it has controlled growth, they can not be created at a faster rate and can not be destroyed.

If we perform a linear regression of the data of the graph we obtain that the STEEM grow at a rate of 77931.31 STEEM/day. If the total amount of STEEM is 253758805, then its annual growth is:

Inflation = 77931.31 * 365 / 253758805 = 11.2%

These new STEEMs added to the blockchain are spread among content authors and curators last week based on their SBD and VESTS conversion rates.

What will happen after the Hard Fork 0.20?

As I mentioned in a previous post, we currently have the problem that the process of creating new users is expensive and time consuming. The Hard Fork 0.20 will reduce the cost of creating users and at the same time streamline the process. And this is the reason why it is called Hard Fork Velocity.
This Hard Fork will have a series of consequences that will be activated as a chain reaction:

1. The Hard Fork allows users to grow faster.
2. A significant growth of users implies a greater volume of post published daily.
3. If there are more posts and more users will grow PENDING REWARDED VESTING SHARES.
4. As the number of new STEEMs grow at a controlled rate, it means that all users will receive less STEEM per post. I repeat for clarity: While VESTS can grow at a higher rate, STEEMs grow at a controlled rate, so one will grow at a faster rate than another. Then the same amount of STEEM should now be distributed among more users, therefore each will have less.
5. The above point will be offset by an increase in the STEEM price. Why? With more users, the platform's popularity will grow, and the amount of content will also be of great interest to make STEEM a benchmark in blogging.

In conclusion, after the Hard Fork 0.20 the price of STEEM will go up, but this does not mean that the reward per post in USD will be higher, but it will remain the same.

Those who can take advantage of this are those who currently invest in STEEM and STEEM POWER as they will see that their wallets will increase in value significantly.

Then let's invest more in STEEM !! 😉

_{Note: The data collected can be dowloaded from https://github.com/joticajulian/steem-activity/tree/master/data}