It is good to be home and even though I have only had 3 full weekends in about the last two or three months, a day off before getting back into work tomorrow is welcomed. I am looking forward to have a few extra days over the Christmas period using my time in lieu, but that is still a few weeks away.
As you can see from the image on the right, I think that 
For a little SPUD entry on the first day of December, I decided to power up to a nice round number, although I couldn't be bothered counting it down to the precise Steem. Not that it would matter anyway as due to the inflation stake accrues, it would very quickly change again. I still find it incredible thatnot much more than two years ago, I said that I would likely never have more than 10,000 Steem Power - 56,666 STEEM later...
Every STEEM that gets sunk into power takes liquid off the exchanges, and this means that scarcity is created. At some point, this will hopefully be coupled with increasing demand which should directly affect price. While price is important for buying and selling, it is also very important for the voting values, as even though the same amount of STEEM would be distributed relative to the stake and current inflation pool size, those amounts could be very large indeed.
My vote is about 45 cents at the moment, if STEEM was 10x up at around $1,50, it would be 4 dollars. That is 40 dollars of value I would be able tom distribute across the platform each day, and while I would get some of that back in curation - the way I would use it would be vital. Not just me of course, every stakeholder would play a role.
I was talking with 
Imagine if Steem went to 0.01 (one cent) tomorrow and stayed there for a long period of time, would you buy it? Does it still have value?
I definitely think it does as irrespective of price on the market, it has both distributive power and organizational power for content on the platform. I wonder how many people would be buying it considering many people who were selling STEEM at the several dollar mark didn't buy back at the 10 cent mark.
Now, say the several thousand people who are still active and working for the future on the platform now chose to buy, while others sold, how quickly would the 120 million Steem disappear from the market and get staked by people who understand that there is value past price? 1000 dollars would buy 100,000 STEEM.
This would create a very interesting dynamic as scarcity would be near immediate and as soon as it drops, those who are wanting to have influence on the platform will sink that straight into their stake. Prices would increase due to demand, but where the real interesting area would be is what would happen with the distribution. If you are looking long on Steem and working toward a future where the ecosystem functions well and is in demand, who would you support - yourself?
Of course, demand increases from $0.01 there would be many sellers entering into the market again, but perhaps not quite as many as before and, perhaps those with stake would be piling it onto value adding areas. What is value adding would always come down to personal preference, but with most of the STEEM taken off the markets and powered up by users who are focusing more on community than return, there would be a concentration of distribution going to what grows the community, not what increases the amount of coins. Factor in the EIP is still in play and a lot of the stake would be willing to downvote, and the platform shifts quite a lot I think.
Of course, this is hypothetical as I do not think that STEEM is going to see on cent, but this is already happening slowly as there are still a lot of people willing to sell and those who are buying are often those who have decided that the long-term value proposition of Steem the blockchain is worth more than the immediate value available from STEEM the token.
Price affects Steem a lot in many ways, but for most users of the blockchain, the biggest effect is on the emotions in play. I have largely disconnected myself from the market price of STEEM at these prices and instead focus on the value of STEEM internally instead. However, I have a life to live and pay for also and I am quite certain that as price increases I will start to consider my own behaviors differently. At some point I will likely sell some liquid STEEM and make sure that all of the effort wasn't for nought financially.
I say financially as even if STEEM has zero value, it still has operational value on the blockchain and perhaps once people stop looking at the earning potential and start playing with the transaction potential instead, they will have a great deal more fun on the platform, which should increase the demand naturally anyway.
Scarcity is the name of the game when it comes to much of what humans value and while most look at it from the token perspective, it also affects other factors on Steem. For example, if we take a hundred average Steemians, how many produce content that you want to read, how many have developed social skills, how many are funny, how many talented, how many have coding skills, how many have the financial ability and will to invest, how many would you want to sit down and share a meal with?
All of these questions factor in scarcity as there are less in the answer than the whole. What makes us as humans special is that we are each a group of scarce factors that make us who we are in relation to others. We are all different and some of the differences are valued on average more than others. While our mothers might believe that we are all special, when it comes to the value a group of relative strangers are willing to apply to what we can offer, there are differences.
Supply and demand drives economics and if what you supply is not in demand, it is your responsibility to change or develop your market, if you are looking for a return on whatever you are willing to offer.
Talking about supply and demand: my wife is hungry and I promised to cook.
Since it is SPUD, should I boil potatoes?
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
