So the market is looking pretty good today and that includes steem which, as I write this, is up 10%. This is great to see but we have a long way to go before we are out of the woods. There is a reason we keep talking about price when it comes to coins and there is a reason it matters that steem and other coins see a certain level of value. The entire ecosystem of a coin like steem depends heavily on price. Sure the system runs when the coin is down but no one is paying attention. It makes sense to post when price is down as you can earn more of the coin but people do not see it that way. A low value coin will lead to no one using the site or app the coin is associated with and this can lead to a further decline of the coin. At the end of the day the price of the coin will determine how well the project is doing and that is why you saw steemit in the top 1k sites during the bull run.
There are several reasons the coin value is very important.
Most People Are Not Here For The Tech:
Okay some people are. But they are few and far between. A lot of people are in crypto to make money and if they are not making decent money they will go to another project. It really is that simple. The coin with the most value attracts the most users and people will go to that dapp. And when that coin value starts to slip and another one goes up a lot of users will switch sites. I'm not saying this is right but you cannot deny that is how the crypto world is currently working. High coin value brings in users. It sounds backwards but it is how things in crypto have been working for the last couple years.
The Pie Needs To Be Big Enough:
Since we need to stop inflation there can only be so many coins on the market. This means that, in order to reward millions of people, the coin needs to have enough value to be worth a lot even at the smallest percent of a unit. Steem needs to get to the point where .01 steem is still worth a god amount if we are going to reward millions and million of users. This is very doable. Steem could reach $100 and people could make a lot if they are only earning .1 steem per post. There is no limit to high how the coin can go. But it needs to go high as we cannot keep printing a coin and selling it on the market.
Paying Users Is What Make Steem Unique:
Our selling point is that we pay users for their work. This is what separates our site from a site like Facebook or Reddit. And if we are not paying people decently for their work there really isn't a reason for people to switch to our site. There are other benefits but if they were enough people would have already switched over. At the end of the day our advantage is we pay users so we need to pay them with something of value to live up to that promise.
Coins Can "Die":
This is another big reason people will not waste their time on a low value coin. There is no guarantee a site or coin will be around in a year or two and people do not want to waste their time on something that can go under. It seems illogical that people will buy a coin with it is worth a few dollars and not when it is worth a few cents but that is because when the coin is up there is confidence that it will have longevity.
I cannot stress how important the price of a coin is to a projects success. DO NOT MANIPULATE YOUR COIN. But you should have fiat coming in to run your business and you should have a lot of ways to spend and burn your coin to get the value as high as you can. Look to binance and their model.
Hopefully we see some good moves as communities and SMTs come here :)
Like someone said, GOLOS didn't die and it's like sub cent or something LOL.. STEEM will survive... what it's price will be? Hrmmmm.. not excited from 11 - 0.10 cents
Let’s just hope steem goes up soon
Can't agree more. Moreover, to increase price of a coin, the major stakeholders have to be creative, innovative and in some case, aggressive. LEO is a good example, similar to Binance model, though in minuscule level. ABBC (Alibaba Coin) is a scam but team knows how to keep it float (https://abbccoin.com/) which I believe has less than 1% of usage of Steem, but ranks 48.
Basically, I believe it is because it is through the ciphers and their potential values that users feel that their work is rewarded (though often not as much as they wanted).
Very good article on steem @whatageek, but here is some of my understanding :
Steemit is unique to rest of the crypto currency and the coin will not die completely as its backed by a huge platform. Once every user of reddit will know about steemit, they will probably switch completely to steemit.
Secondly as you said, users and their engagement is very much essential for steemit to grow. For that it becomes utmost requirement to help minnows.
Any new user will definitely not invest, unless and until he will understand the actual concept behind steemit and how it works. So initially they need help from whales with reward and great articles.