When I started posting on Steem, both Steem and SBD were worth $1.00 USD. It was like that for quite a while, then it hit a top and then hit bottom again. Because of the bull and bear markets.
If the people working on the blockchain made it so only the whales got greater value, how would that encourage content creators? Steemit used to be a viable income source for me. And that was when I was still a Red Fish. I'm a Minnow, a delegator, halfway to Dolphin, but I don't see how when I do become a Dolphin how that will change. My upvote today is worth almost as little as it was when I first joined in June 2017. I don't Power Down, but I'm holding Steem that I don't intend on Powering Up so that I can cash it out, because it's my income.
I used to Power Up ALL my Steem. I used to only cash out SBD and sometimes buy Steem or other tokens and crypto currencies with SBD. What happened to those? WHY are we not getting SBD anymore?
Due to the low price of STEEM, the ability of the system to support the SBD already in circulation being worth $1 is not there, so creating new SBD is mostly disabled (the only exception being for SPS).
If the price of STEEM goes up or the amount of SBD in circulation goes down, then SBD will again be worth $1 and it will start getting paid out as rewards. In fact just a day or two ago there was a price spike in STEEM, and it looked like SBD was going to be restored, but the price dropped back down and we aren't quite there yet.
There is a project called @sbdpotato which is reducing the supply of SBD by converting it to STEEM on behalf of the SPS treasury. If you want to get SBD worth $1 and reenabled for rewards, then support @sbdpotato by voting for its posts/comments as well as its SPS proposal.
Cool, thanks for sharing that info, it clarifies a lot. Yeah I converted my SBD ages ago. Just have less than 1 SBD left, maybe I'll convert that too. (I like to cash out an round number lol)
I'll definitely give them a follow.
Prices ARE on the rise, but it's better when it's a slow rise and a stable one than a spike and drop.