Personally, I think the current problem is the 20% interest on HBD.

There is currently about $5 HBD in savings earning 20% interest. 20% of $5 M is $1 M.

The HBD conversion program guarantees the price of HBD. So, if one converts 1 HBD they will get $1 USD worth of HIVE after a 3.5 day delay.

Converting 1 million HBD into HIVE at $0.25 will create 4 million HIVE.

To put this into perspective: An account needs 5500 HP to become a dolphin. 4 million HP equals 727 dolphin accounts.

Essentially, we need to convince 727 people to power up 5500 HP next year to cover the interest on HBD. I wrote a post about this, and things got worse.

We also have to consider the interest on HIVE.

The interest on HIVE plus the interest on HBD is simply more than the market can bear.

Think if it from an investor's perspective. HIVE guarantees a $5 million loan at 20%. If you had several thousand dollars to invest; would you invest in an equity with that type of loan on the books?

Hopefully the witnesses will drop the HBD interest some time next year. If they dropped the HBD interest, the platform would be able to absorb the HIVE interest and we would see the price of HIVE improve.