the 2-4 USD / token days, so remember this should NOT be taken as any financial advice, and any investments made should only come from disposable income, in my opinion . Anyway, here's my take:-
BTC is hitting another peak soon. Sell-offs should trigger buys in other cryptos.
Steemit's development roadmap is coming out soon (I think on 1st January).
People are getting their bonuses and finances sorted out for the new year.
The growing and maturing community here is progressively learning and understanding Steem's advantages over other blockchains. This awareness should spill forth and strengthen the network. With more debates and talkshows happening for Steem's ambassadors, this could only be a good thing. Six months into the Steemit experiment and we're still around. Staying in the game is key.
I think Steem's blockchain has the right designs in place for a social platform. If Synereo and Akasha ever shows up in the market - it will bring more attention into social blockchains. This can benefit Steem if positioned and marketed properly.
Behemoths like BTC and Ethereum may face network issues when the hard questions about scalability come hitting. It's already happening, at least in certain circles in Ethereum's community. I still believe in Ethereum, although admittedly I've changed my position about it's short-term price after discovering Steem a few months ago. Steem is simply more developed and feels complete with an application like Steemit. The funny thing is, most of my cohorts in Ethereum seems to think that Steemit's a scam and it's especially baffling after finding out they don't even know much about it!
Steemit acts like a crowdfunding platform that goes to all kinds of entities (groups, individuals). It's the equivalent of spreading investments on a wide portfolio and hoping for exponential returns in at least one. The ability to earn new Steem isn't entirely dependent on stakes and hashpower, and this is quite a differentiation compared to Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Reddit's current market value is at 240 million USD. A quarter of that is 60 million USD. Assuming Steemit can easily achieve that market valuation, one Steem token in 6 years would be around 60 million USD / 400 million tokens. Which ends up at 15 cents / Steem. That's the price right now at ~200 million tokens. If you're feeling way more bullish than Reddit's position like me, then adjust accordingly. Plus, consider that Reddit has only about 15-30 people working in direct interest of improving Reddit itself. Steemit has way more than that, considering that the wider community has some stakes in the network.
Steemit is partly a successful basic income implementation if you think about it. Instead of granting basic income blindly, here rewards are given to just about any displays of effort. Once the message is clear that Steemit's the place for self and community development, I think it will carve a nice broad niche for the network. Get rewarded for doing what you love and care about. Well, at least that's what seems to be going on for Steemit at the moment.
I think communities in Steemit will be better organized in 2017. We're a new kind of organization after all. There's plenty of potential once the structures are figured out and improved upon.
All said, of course it remains that market attention is usually mostly focused on one, and that's Bitcoin. All currency values are just human beliefs anyway, and Bitcoin's market value is certainly attention grabbing despite foreseeable network problems in the near future. In any case, it's a good thing for cryptocurrencies in general.
And personally, I've recently converted most of my Ethers to Steem. I think it will be a long period of uncertainty. Bold move I know, knowing that Steem Power liquidation
