Its amazing the way cryptos work. One minute a coin is mooning, the next its dipping like its gonna crash hard.
If there was a Christmas gift I would have asked santa, it wouldn't be more than what is currently being experienced in the world of cryptos.

Hello everyone! Steem ATH for 2017 to occur in December?!

For the world of steem, the year of 2017 started with a very weak price of steem. People had stopped posting as the reward was not coming forth as much as they hoped.

The price of steem at the beginning of the year was horribly low, $0.1 per steem

By the time I joined steemit, in march, the price of steem had dropped to $0.08. I must admit even I was skeptical of the platform at that instance. I was really focused on multiple projects I was working on at the time. Around april/ may, I started posting regularly, getting encouragement from people on the platform before I.

Long story short, steem entered the year 2017 on a low note. Worthy of notice is the fact that in 2016, steem had just a single peak, a peak at the launch of the coin, after which everything subsequently dropped like a stone in water.

This year 2017, the price of steem has peaked twice, hitting a 2017 ATH(all time high of $2.5 in its first peak, and the second peak currently occurring has a price of $2.3 per steem already.

A pattern is emerging, one of which we can only be hopeful will continue in the positive direction. Coins do not moon forever, at one go, there are fluctuations and movements. I liken it to life, there are peaks and troughs, highs and lows.
So while the major trend may be up, there re instances that feel like the coin is crashing, just hodl.

The year of 2018 is looking very promising for steem, so its not impossible to enter the new year with an ATH steem price of $3.0. ALong with the introduction of SMTs and communities, 20m is being pumped by a company into the steemit ecosystem, along with major promotion attempts from steemit. INC.

Bitcoin in the lead

A basic run down of the situation is that btc has risen. From the price of $1000 at the beginning of the year, to the current price of $20000 that it peaked on a few hours ago, there is no surprise why the whole world is interested in such technology/currency.

This has helped every single altcoin available.
And it is this rise which started around the month of July that has pushed Crypto to the mainstream media.
It is also this rise that has fueled speculations that btc is in a bubble(more on that in another post).

The life of the crypto watcher is never complete without having what seems like mini heart attacks due to the volatile nature of these coins. To those investing in ICOs, its almost akin to blind investment. This isn't hard to see, as a lot of coins may have a well written whitepaper, but that doesn't necessarily translate to a successful coin.

The FUD

source
Bitcoin isnt all joy and rise though, with the current rates and way inwhich the technology was designed, transaction fees are shooting through the roof, along with transaction time.
I barely hear anything about it right now and I wonder, because sooner or later, the issue about the transaction fees of Bitcoin is going to be called into question, and a decision will be made by investors whether to stick to BTC or port to a coin with a more stable economy.

Along with this is also the potential truth in the fact that btc may be in a bubble.

An economic bubble or asset bubble (sometimes also referred to as a speculative bubble, a market bubble, a price bubble, a financial bubble, a speculative mania, or a balloon) is trade in an asset at a price or price range that strongly exceeds the asset's intrinsic value.[1][2][3] It could also be described as a situation in which asset prices appear to be based on implausible or inconsistent views about the future.[4] Asset bubbles date back as far as the 1600s and are now widely regarded as a recurrent feature of modern economic history.
source

Bubbles are normal for healthy growth in economy, it drives innovation as people build technology around the asset that is in the bubble(such as the adoption of blockchain tech, creation of different ideas to improve on the idea of what btc brought)

Cryptos are awesome

If there is a down side to the widespread adoption of bitcoin and cryptos in general, it is that a lot of people have lost the purpose of why cryptos exist.

No longer do people invest because they believe in the technology and what it can do, but people assume that once you put money in it, itll grow and you can simply cash out. This can be seen everytime btc hits a new target (like 20k) people sell off, they cash in on their investment.

If an incentive of holding btc is that it enables the use of technology that makes banks obsolete, then we ought to enlighten those new on the block.

The danger of people coming in just to invest without knowing the reason why btc exist is that they do not know what they are investing into. All they see are market trends, demand and supply. These lead to uncertainty about the future because they do not know what future the coin envisions. If you read above, you can see how this easily transforms the coin into a bubble property.

So in essence, how do you view your btc?
Like a currency?
Like an asset that can be resold for major profit?
Like a portal to the future?

There are different reasons why people hold coins, and different reaction to innovation.
Like a website put it, crypto tech is either the worlds latest life changing technology, or the worlds biggest fraud.

Thanks