For Hive, hoping the value will increase is purely speculative. With inflation, about 10%, and most of that going to authors, developers and witnesses, just holding HP for Curation rewards at the current value of Hive is a little underwhelming given the volatility of cryptocurrency.
Actually, it's pretty easy to achieve 10 percent APR on curation alone. I know people who get 15 to 16 percent APR just by curating.
2HP curation /1000 a week (kinda easy to get) is around 104/1000 a year so combined with the inflation rewards for just having HP, it's easy to stay on top, but what are we looking at like 2% more than inflation? It's not a particularly good investment. You could sell your Hive and stick it in a better investment.
Between March 2017 and December 2017, Bitcoin went up 20x. Do you know the factor by which STEEM went up between March 10 2017 and January 3 2018?
Hint: large cap coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum are NOT where the largest gains were made and I believe will not be made in the current cycle, either.
I also make more than 10% but its not so easy. Also the problem is the risk factor. There are safer ways to make 10%.
The problem with investing in midcap and low cap cryptos is they have a tendency to die. There will always be spectacular hits, but the amount of ones that die off are starrgering.
I think the lowest Steem price was cents, Hive and steem are now a whopping 35 cents combined for a gain of 7x.
Do I have to comapre it to BTC when it was worth fractions of a penny or ethereium when it was worth about 1$? Being selective will always product selective results.
You do have a point about potential. There is only so much more doubling btc or eth can do given the marketcap size.