"top crypto figure"
c'mon... I really don't care who it is, I'm not going to let someone come in and buy out the top witness positions so they can do what they want with the chain.
"Even before all of this, left to our own devices we were trading at a solid 12-15c."
the price of a highly inflationary currency like STEEM is not relevent. Especially with the mass sell-offs from Steemit Inc. in the past. Lots of promising projects were breaking ground despite the price, the price is a bad way to judge what was happening on the chain.
and yes, @ned had no right to sell Steemit's stake as his own personal cash