I gave barely any thought to Steem being on so few exchanges!Thanks for this @socky
I've only been active for a couple of weeks now but looking at the chart on Coinmarketcap I see a spike that happened in early January this year, but can't seem to find any news or announcements, would you know happened?
I'd also love to look at a live chart with 1 or 5 minute candles but I'm not sure that even exists for now. In the meantime I'll do the same and fill out these forms. I would never have known so thanks again, this is awesome 👍
A few things happened. One was that the extreme low supply of SBD caused a massive surge in price. It went to about $15. That along with new apps being introduced like Dtube, and some others caused a surge in interest in Steemit accounts and activity. Also Poloniex and HitBTC were both trading STEEM and SBD and had wallets fully functioning.
You combine a surge in active users, free flowing STEEM and SBD on exchanges, great SBD price, and the booming market, you get a massive boost in STEEM price.
Ever since STEEM and SBD wallets on Poloniex and HitBTC went down for maintenance indefinitely, the price of STEEM and SBD have steadily dropped.
The big issue is SBD availability. Most people don't realize that SBD is a major source of new money and growth in STEEM. When it is kept off of exchanges, investors don't trade it and no new money can come into the system. This is limiting the growth of STEEM.
How the economics works is Steemians are paid in SBD. They are incentivized to sell SBD when the price is over $1.00. When it is made available on exchanges, investors buy our SBD to trade or to hold. When SBD is kept off the exchanges, there are very limited places to sell SBD. This hurts STEEM growth by not incentivizing users to be active to earn SBD rewards.
Ahh ok that makes sense, had no idea that Poloniex and HitBTC went down. It's crazy that there hasn't been more effort to get SBD onto more exchanges. I just took for granted that it was happening, my mind is now blown.