Steem has seen some stability and rise amid the Bitcoin's unprecedented leaps in December. If you have been keeping track of Steem's price on Cryptocurrency Market Cap website or any exchange, you may have observed that Steem is consistently stable around $1.7 (I started writing this article two weeks ago but deferred it till new year). See the Steem chart below to have a look at its recent performance. It's debatable whether Bitcoin will hold its price and the whole cryptocurrency market will keep its growth intact (it has dropped and then recovered considerably in last two weeks).
Image Source: The top image is created using Canva, a free tool with inbuilt free images.
Steem's recent performance. (Coinmarketcap.com screenshot)
Ever growing cryptocurrency market. (Coinmarketcap.com screenshot)
But as we have seen in the case of Iota, Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero, Dash and many more, the altcoins are raring to make a mark or simply explode. A proof of that is the ever decreasing dominance of Bitcoin's share of market cap. From 87 % in January 2017, it has dropped to just 37 % as of today (see the chart below). Steem is ranked # 36 at the time of writing this. It has shown incredible growth as well to the current price, considering it stayed under $1 for the last part of October and the best part of entire November.
Altcoins on the rise and challenging the big daddy. (Coinmarketcap.com screenshot)
Anyone who bought at the recent price of $0.90 is already sitting at a handsome profit right now. Anyone who bought exactly a year ago has gained 24x. The lucky few who accumulated at $0.07 are enjoying 52x gains already. But is the current price the best Steem can be? I don't think so.
Steem has seen $0.07 low and a $4.10 high last year. Still hugely undervalued.
Update: I don't know where it is going but Steem is flying! (I hope you know it crossed $8 already!)
I am listing 5 reasons why 2018 is the year of explosive growth for Steem. I will encourage you to do your own research before investing your money. My views are based on my knowledge, future events, and excitement about benevolence that Steem economy is going to introduce in the entire globe. Steemit is just one part of this new global economy and it is yet to reach even its minimum potential.
Let's begin!
1. Smart Media Tokens
The CEO of Steemit, @ned (Ned Scott), annouced Smart Media Tokens three months ago. Here's what his statement read:-
After more than 20 months of development and 350,000 users on Steem, I have an important message for you about a new Steem-based protocol I call Smart Media Tokens to allow any and every application to have their own STEEM-like token.
Basically, Smart Media Tokens are Steem blockchain based tokens which will incentivize media content of all kinds; ranging from blogging to video platforms. Applications can be numerous and unlimited. For example, New York Times may decide to create NYT tokens to reward authors and commentators on their online platform, thus massively increasing engagement. Think of video sharing platforms, popular blogs, and media sharing websites using SMTs to incentivize usage of their platforms. The whole paradigm of internet will change forever.
Read: SMTs Whitepaper
Ned talked about why SMTs are being created. But the most interesting aspect of SMTs is the value it brings to Steem; making each Steem more valuable. Watch Ned sharing 5 value driving aspects of SMTs.
The best thing about SMTs? Steem will be in more demand and less supply. Anyone who understands market can understand what more demand and less supply can do to a coin. Bitcoin is valuable because it has more demand and a limited.
2. Steem Based ICOs
One of the main reasons why Ethereum went from under $10 to over $700 in one year was its ability to hold ICOs, create ERC20 compliant tokens and create new applications on the Ethereum blockchain. Countless ICOs, tokens and applications have been produced on the Ethereum network. Just see what Steem is doing this year.
- Steem will conduct ICOs and the ICO management will raise Steem as fund.
- SMTs are Steem blockchain based tokens going to be produced when SMTs are properly launched.
- Steem blockchain has already powered great applications like @dtube (Dtube), @utopian-io (Utopian), @zappl (Zappl) @busy.org (Busy) and so many more.
These ICOs will not only increase demand of Steem and lock it down for some time but also cause an epic noise in the world of internet, bring more attention to Steem and Steemit.
Image Source: It would be this simple to conduct ICOs on Steem.
3. Hardfork 0.20.0 "Velocity" (Millions of New Users)
Hardfork 0.20.0 "Velocity" was proposed on @steemitblog six months ago. It was a major announcement but its timeline fell in early 2018 so just a little buzz was created. More talk was about the Hardfork 0.19.0 which happened last year. Enough for history. Here are two massive takeaways from that announcement.
Growing as Big as Reddit
The aim of Steemit is to grow at least as big as Reddit. It may be an information of some value to you that Reddit is the number 8 global website right now as per Alexa rankings (#5 in US). Competing and beating Reddit means truly global dominance. Here's what the proposal laid out.
We want to grow Steem to at least to size of Reddit, hopefully larger. Reddit currently has 234 million unique users a month. Let's assume that if they have a 50% retention rate (quite generous), then they would have signed up 468 million accounts. If we wanted to do the same then it would cost 93.6 million STEEM ($187.2 million at the current price) and 13.5 billion Steem Power in delegations.
And to tackle the issue, Steemit is introducing discounted account creation; a process which will ensure smoother account creation. Which will bring....
Millions of New Users
While concluding the proposal, @steemitblog wrote:-
Steem Velocity is going to be key to bringing millions of users to the Steem ecosystem. Communities and our mobile application are on their way. Development is proceeding well and 0.20.0 will be paramount to getting us prepared for those launches and opening the floodgates for the millions of new users that will get to experience Steem in the next year.
Millions of new users means a massive eruption of the ecosystem and billions of eyeballs on the platform. What it means to Steem is that the supply will be scarce so value of each Steem will move up. Also, more interest in Steem means more investment into Steem. Instead of relying on a few big investors to buy millions of $ worth of Steem to increase its price, Steem will be bought by millions of people in small quantities and still raise the value like big investors do.
4. Highly Secure Mobile Wallet
One of the priorities of early 2018 and late 2017 was availability of highly secure mobile wallet apps for iOS and Android. Development is already under process and apps may be announced anytime soon. It may be announced with "Velocity" hardfork or earlier than that. Let's see how Steem will benefit from it.
- Right now, Steem can only be stored on exchanges or in Steemit. With the availability of mobile wallet, Steem would be securely stored on the wallet and would not require use of Steemit website (though securer than most) all the time.
- Proper wallet is one of the prime requirements of people who invest in cryptos. Making it available will bring in more investors too.
- Just the announcement of Mobile Wallet may spike the price. For most cryptos, it invariably does.
It is yet to be seen when the mobile wallet is made available but my guess is that it will happen within next 1-3 months.
5. Roadmap 2018
Showing the worth of community feedback, @steemitblog requested community input for Steemit Roadmap 2018. The request received huge response and many experienced as well as new users gave their ideas of a better Steemit in 2018. Meanwhile, @utopian-io, a platform for open source contribution, was also introduced as well. It became the default platform to suggest improvements in the Steemit. My first contribution was about improving user retention on Steemit.
As a result of the feedback, Steemit is bringing in more improvements in 2018. Notification system is being improved. UI and UX are going to be improved. Underlying code will be edited to incorporate major improvements as well. Overall, a great year ahead may be anticipated.
Conclusion
There are many more reasons why Steem is going to be big in 2018 I think. For example, the price of SBD is $8.9 and just a $100 post reward means 37.5 SBDs liquid reward (worth $333). SBD has low supply so price is highly volatile despite it being pegged to $1. But I have listed the most exciting and concrete five reason I think would take Steem to moon this year. My prediction is $10 (went past $8 already today 3 January) by March-April and $25-50 by end of this year. Highly ambitious but I have listed my reasons. Again, do your own research before investing any money.
Do you share this Steem dream 2018? Or you are skeptical about it? What are your thoughts and where do you see Steem going this year? Do let others know in the comments below. Resteem for the sake of Steem, rather share this post on your social media platforms to let people know about Steem.
Growing as Big as Reddit, I think it is not easy haha...
Yes. It wasn't easy for Reddit to be this big as well. But Steemit pays. What does Reddit do? Karma points?
Day 2 of the year 2018 and here's what we are seeing right now. Still highly undervalued I think.
When you think $5.59 is big...
Ever growing levels of excitement!
Let's enjoy and be thankful for being on Steemit. Let's do something to let the world of investors know what a beast in the making Steem is. Requesting everyone to promote this post on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and wherever you can.
We owe a lot to Steem. I tried to give back a bit with this post. Please do not forget to share it further.
One last edit perhaps. Price rose to $8.57 on 3 January, 2018 and went past even this figure on some exchanges. I was predicting $10 by March-April but I think I will have to increase the bar a bit now.
Brilliant post! You make some extremely compelling points. 2018 is going to be an extremely exciting year for those of us involved here in this still early stage. Thanks for sharing and happy new year 2018, the year of steemit!
Thank you so much. I share the same feelings as well and hoping to have a great year ahead.
Very nice analysis and I agree with your sentiments but don't forget about the other Graphene project, BitShares! That will be the big daddy of them all!
As we talked in the chat, I love Bitshares as well and also EOS. I think EOS, despite being an Ethereum based coin, was introduced by @dan as well. Dan posted an interested POV on Steem and his blockchains and why he prefers latter. Ned wrote a big argument. Both were perhaps fighting but in decency. Sad to see though.
I have great hopes from Bitshares as well.
Agreed....I all think steem will reach top 10 coins in terms of market cap buy the end of 2018....I believe in Steem, we all do...
Well written and detailed post. I was already bullish on Steem but you just took my enthusiasm to another level. A lot of positive developments on the horizon. I’m particularly excited about SMTs. Happy New Year!
Happy new year too! I wish you great success and profits in 2018. I think SMTs will make something great happen to all Steemians.
Shared to my Steemit Facebook & Twitter Group👍 Great Post by the way, 2018 is going to be year Steem will experience it's strongest Bull run
Like it already is. I'm not sure how many tumbles await us but the peak would be beautiful. Thank you for the promotion.
And we already started the year breaking an all time high!!!
$1.7+ billion market cap was achieved too. Incredible rise!
Lately, I've been seeing Steem's graph closely matching that of Bitcoin, as I showed in this article, https://steemit.com/steemit/@hmushtaq/good-news-steem-s-price-is-finally-resurging. So, if that trend continues, a rise in Bitcoin's value would also mean a rise in Steem's value. And I'm foreseeing a huge rise in Bitcoin's value. Despite all those new and better altcoins, Bitcoin is here to stay, and hopefully, along with it, Steem too!
It's great to see Steem moving with Bitcoin but I think Steem will really take off in the coming months. Umm... It already has taken off independent of Bitcoin. Very interesting!
I love Steemit. thank you for such an informative post. I'm looking forward to a bright future. and happy New year.
Clearly there are a few issues, with the whale fighting and highly unequal distribution of payments. Nonetheless, Steemit remains a great idea and I hope the upcoming events will help it grow thank you brother everytime you give good information for steemens. I am new join please any mistake for sorry brothers thank you for sharing @ilyastarar
Thank you for your feedback and I agree that the platform is still growing and has a great future.
Hello @ilyastarar it's always a pleasure to read your post! First of all happy new year to you!
Thanks to your post now i know about utopian and zappl, and i will try that.
This 2018 for me will be one of the best year, i think steemit will have a huge grow and will be recognize by so much people! After my registration here on steemit i don't use anymore facebook and i'm trying to take my friend here to try this amazing opportunity!
And for sure at the end of the year we will be like reddit!
Hope to read another of your post soon, upvote and resteemed!
Thank you so much for your feedback. Happy new year and have a wonderful Steemy year ahead!
hello,
Happy new year bro first of all,
Oh yes, 2018 will be positive that is for sure! I took a break from Steem, for couple weeks, and I am back now, mamma mia.... what a changes.
I see more traffic, I see more uptoves, I see more articles coming, more quality articles, information, and people are earning more dollaz on the way: which is nice!
Two thumbs up bro!
Welcome back and I am sure it's just tip of the iceberg. We may see a massive influx of users soon and we will have to earn that rewarded harder than we do now. But every 0.001 Steem will be so valuable soon.
Given with how well Steem is doing now on the first day of the year, I think it’s a great sign for the currency!
I agree with you that smart media tokens are really going to revolutionize everything as we know it now too.
I am yet to watch @hilarski and @dollarvigilante talking about Steem. It's on former's blog. Do watch to see what happened with Steem on new year.
I share in this Steem Dream!
2018 the year of STEEM
✌
👍👍
We are witnessing truly incredible user growth. The rise in STEEM is a reflection of the demand on the token from the increase in content creators. As STEEM rallies that pushes more people to the platform. I am extremely excited for the future of STEEM and Steemit!!
I share these incredible sentiments with you and let's hope that we hang on for long enough.
You are very right Steem has seen some stability and rise amid the Bitcoin's unprecedented leaps in December. One of the main reasons why Ethereum went from under $10 to over $700 in one year was its ability to hold ICOs, create ERC20 compliant tokens and create new applications on the Ethereum blockchain!
i totally agreed Steemit is such a great opportunity to Learn and share!
thanks brother @ilyastarar for such an informative post!
Thank you very much.
Nice post I didn’t know about velocity or the Reddit stats. It seems like a few improvements could help us surpass Reddit. We need to be able to follow topic rather than people . That’s why Reddit is more used than twitter.
I think it will be implemented through change in the code. Many users are requesting better content categorization and discovery. It's a need. The current algorithms don't help a lot.
It’s been an obvious need for a year. Though to be fair I think the scaling probably needs to be done before we add it. It will really take off and such an easy hange to make. It’s nice to hodl a coin with such a simple fix to increase its value. Eventually hey will pull be switch.
Thank you for such an informative post. I'm looking forward to a bright future.
Clearly there are a few issues, with the whale fighting and highly unequal distribution of payments. Nonetheless, Steemit remains a great idea and I hope the upcoming events will help it grow.
More the attention towards Steemit, more the improvement.
Upvote and resteem for good reason !
Thank you!
5.83% @pushup from @ilyastarar
Totally agree, i upvote for that!
Thank you
cool inspirational post, resteem!
Thank you for support.
you are welcome. :) grats with great post 🚀
Idea of smart media tokens is brilliant.
And it is receiving special attention to improve upon the Steemit experience. Good things happening soon.
u r absolutely right it will go up.am also learning from your posts.
Thanks
Awesome post!
Way to go steem!
Seems to have lots of potentials.
Another good opportunity that you guys might wanna check out is salt.Just did a write up on it and why i think its good.Cheers!
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@srankoin/salt-btc-massive-buy-opportunity
Always Great Post Dear You Are Great Response Please :)
What?
I am so happy I have found your post! (I saw this when @steemnation has published in twitter)
Your very well presented information and research actually answers many of my questions (posted here] where I was wondering about the users' retention and how we and steemit can assist in its development through its members.
I, too, share your thoughts and I believe that 2018 will be big for steemit BUT it can be bigger.
Many new users are coming here, especially now that the steem price increases, but they are coming out of curiosity and I am not sure how many will actually stay.
There are so many great initiatives for welcoming newbies, tutorials as yours and more .. The only problem is that in the majority of the cases, these information are never delivered (or understood) by the users.
Spam users and comments are increasing and the users sometimes do not know their next actions or how to protect themselves.
I believe in promoting steem and I do plan a number of things about it, but I believe that promoting needs also educating new members and make information easy to find.
Again, thrilled to have come accross your blog. Resteemed of course and let's all do whatever we can for a great steemit year!
I'm so glad you wrote this, and I read this. It's important that I got some assurances since I just started on Steemit. You have re-assured me that I'm at the right place. Thank you.
Thanks for the information
Brilliant post @ilyastarar!! I love the way you articulate things and lay them down in a free flow and easily understandable manner. I am sure you would have spent a lot of time creating it... Worth the effort...
One hundred percent generic and zero effort comments. I reward 97 % of comments. Yours is among the 3 %.