it was when engine tokens started. i think one of the first was PAL and they did some kind of scale of how much hive (steem) account had powered up. so if you had 1000-5000 you got 500 PAL or something like that. And then few weeks? later LEO dropped equal to how much pal you had powered up (so people that sold god nothing).
And it could be that i dreamed all of this, so don't quote me on it :D