With the inflation being pre-set at 9.5% and reduced by .5% every year, this in it's self is an indication that the price of Steem should continue to rise as more users come into the platform with less Steem to be rewarded every year. To compensate for the influx of new users, the price of Steem will need to rise in value to at least maintain current payouts. The main reason I believe this will occur is that holders of Steem Power will be less likely to power down b/c they stand to make much more by holding their Steem in Steem Power as the price of Steem increases. This is where the real money will be made. Members of the community who are invested in the platform for the long haul, for which I believe most dolphins & whales are, will be much less likely to part with their Steem. One thing Steemit will have to do is, which has recently been touched on by @dragosroua, is to use smaller fractions of Steem for payouts as the price of Steem rises. Here's a brief snippet from his post concerning this:
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