The TRUTH about how much Steem actually exists. The REAL reason Steem cost $4+

In light of the recent spectacular rally in Steem prices, the more research I seem to do, the more truth I find in the statement;

Steem is REALLY rare!!

How rare you ask, well first of all I think it's important to make a distinction between Steem Power and Steem. Steem power is essentially restricted stock, locked down and untransferable in exchange for a 90% interest rate. Of coarse you can Power Down, but this takes 2 years until your full Steem holding is related to you.

Let's start by looking at exactly how much Steem currently exists.. There is nothing new here, bear with me.

This shows that currently there is about 2.08m Steem in circulation (Current supply v Total Vesting Funds) which equates to around a 2% of Steem and Steem Power, roughly $8m. It get a bit more interesting when you look at the Steem Rich List..

The middle column represents the Steem rich list (UN-vested Steem). Accounts Steem, Steemit2 and Steemit are all controlled by the Steemit team (as far as I am aware, when I've looked at the transaction history, that seems to make sense), and between these account they hold around 730,000 Steem. If we assume that these funds are not going anywhere anytime soon, this would bring the Steem in circulation down further to 1.35m. That being said, it does appear that Steemit1 (another account controlled by the Steemit team, with strong links to the other accounts) has been cashing in some Steem recently, which is good to see there is enough liquidity for them to fund the expansion on this platform.

Overall a 1.3% (rough) free float of Steem does mean that the currently price of Steem cannot be considered real to those of us holding Steem Power. There is a reason that Stock Exchanges around the world demand a free float of 20%+. Market manipulation, and market euphoria can throw price a mile away from true value. This being said, I have been a advocate of this approach (by Steemit @da @ned), and still am, in order to secure the future of Steemit, and prevent a dump from which Steem may not recover (like so many other Cryptocurrencies).

I would advise anyone considering to buy Steem, to work hard on the platform, and earn the Steem in exchange for Creation and Curation of Content. With 14,000 users, a market cap of $340m ($24,300 per user), and a 1.3% free float, it make no sense to trust the current market price.

Steemit is great, and I believe it has a big future ahead of itselfs. I trust @dan and @ned to deliver this. I just want people to stop and consider the value play and the market conditions that are causing Steem to rally so hard at the moment.

I welcome anyone's thoughts...