The Empire strikes back - the Americas not rolling over and playing dead so easily as the Linear Rewards spur activity and growth.

The wrestle between East and West for king of the hill continued this week.

It seems 19 forks, in the proverbial, was all the US needed to spur a little increased activity from the US.

Where Asia had passed the Americas late last week, they lost a little STEEM as bitcoin and many of the alts took a little breather on the markets.

As news spread of the great changes brought in by the upgrade to linear rewards and the positive results thereof, traffic surged in the Americas with a noticeable upswing that continues.

Outside interest also surged to all time highs, adding to the idea that these changes are very well received and creating interest even among non-steemians.

The interest was mainly from the US.

There are a couple of other interesting new entrants in the list:

Japan at number 9

Due to my bias I notice South Africa at 18 and Nigeria at 25.

Pakistan joins the party too.

When we switch to returning user we see the list shuffles quite a bit.

The US drops by 4% and South Korea goes up by 4%

Seoul and Busan are now the top two cities.

London was 3rd

New York $ L.A. have slipped to 4th and 5th respectively.

Medan (Indonesia) is next.

...and then three Australian cities... go OZ

So, all in all, steemit.com continues to surge onward and upward at a steady rate.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens in the coming weeks as the true effects of the Hard Fork begin to be felt more broadly and consistently and becomes more widely known.

Will we see an even steeper growth curve?