I was thinking the other day about my Steem Power and if I should invest in Steem by buying some from an exchange and then powering it up. At first I thought this was a good idea as I seen it as an investment in Steemit.

So I headed over to Bittrex and got some Steem, I then sent it to my wallet and powered it up giving me around 440 in Steem power. At full voting power I can give people 0.07 per vote.

I thought considering the amount of money I had just invested that didn't seem amazing. So I had a look into the value of Steem and it's historical price rise and falls.

The following is taken from https://coinmarketcap.com

It was shocked to see that Steem hasn't actually gone anywhere for a very long time in terms of price increases. Which shocked me as I hear daily here on Steemit about how big this site is getting and how Steem will reach $10 one day.

Surly if the user base is growing at such a huge rate then the price of Steem should follow? (supply and demand)

As you would think users of Steemit would buy Steem in order to power up therefore driving up the demand, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

I see so many different alt coins out there that don't actually do anything different to other competing coins and then I look at Steem and see how much it's being used in a real world example here on Steemit and yet it's price hovers around the same time and time again while the other coins that other very little if anything different are skyrocketing.

Is this because Steem is made out of thin air that it's value doesn't seem to change much?

Look at all these ICO's making millions overnight when the companies operating them offer nothing in return at the time of investment.

So my questions are.

How many people buy Steem and then power it up? and how many people simply cash out their earnings each week from Steemit?

As usual thanks for listening

Happy Steeming Steemers and Steemettes.