In order not to lose value, STEEM requires a source of income that currently doesn´t have. The hopes of most of us is that income is provided by the Smart Media Tokens launch, but the success of that new platform isn´t guaranteed at all.

Another option would be advertising. Whereas promotion of articles burns SBD sending it to @null, banners provides income to Steemit Inc, so only the first option has a direct impact, and the market prices of SBD and STEEM proves that it is not enough.

If Bitcoin price rises, it is likely that STEEM price will rise too. However, that condition depends of market volatility and is not sustainable in the long term.

Witnesses can´t do much to solve this situation. They tried to reduce resource credit availability to increase power up, but that was too harmful to minnows and didn´t work. They also tried to increase curation rewards, and this solved the problem of the bid bots, but didn´t stop the price from dropping either.

SO, I can´t imagine any solutions for this other than waiting for the SMT launch. Maybe you are more creative and have any idea?