Steem's price will rise only if the demand for it increases, just like any other good or service. The problem with cryptos is that they're very easy to create, but they're not useful for much. We're busily creating Steem/SBD with our posts, upvotes and so on. So, the supply keeps increasing. However, they're of little use outside of accounting gimmicks, so demand is low, meaning prices are low and falling due to the increasing supply.
Bitcoin's promise was to replace credit card networks with faster, cheaper, decentralized transactions processing. So far, no crypto can come anywhere close to a credit card's volume and timeliness. I doubt that blockchain can ever do this. However, BTC was an excellent proof-of-concept. Blockchain is a very promising technology with lots of applications, even if the original one didn't quite work.
RE: When will Steem price start to raise?