Hey @lukestokes.
Whaleshares was never an operation that encouraged people to invest in. They have always been distributed for free during contests and giveaways, or earned for making an effort to help the community in some way.

I understand how it could be confusing that a token is distributed and managed in this manner, not to mention the use case.
Whaleshares is a cross chain utility token on the bitshares platform that allows you to trade it in for a vote from @officialfuzzy on steemit.
It's been used to reward people for interaction, participation and effort.

When we see it devalued 90%, that simply means that the rewards aren't as powerful as they once were.
There's no problem because I know that everyone has the right mindset to succeed no matter the size of the payout.

Feel free to come say hi sometime :)
https://discord.gg/NTKXJhK