STEEM value is perplexing. The more I evaluate it, the more I realize the value should be much more than it currently is. I think I found the single largest influence of what is holding the value low.

One factor in price is liquidity:

Money, or cash, is the most liquid asset, because it can be "sold" for goods and services instantly with no loss of value and it is accepted. There is no wait for a suitable buyer of the cash. In STEEM, most of the supply of STEEM is locked away in Steem Power (SP). The situation is STEEM has a supply and demand issue. There is a small amount of liquid STEEM available (currency that can be readily used). For this one simple difference, STEEM should be valuated at a much higher price, but it isn't.

Why?

Simply the reason is availability. Yes, a Steemian can buy and exchange STEEM on this platform, but that only goes so far. If we take a Macro look at the economics, Steemit community is very small. It only has about 160,000 monthly active users. In this perspective, Steemit community is a small city that is spread out all over the world. There is rapid growth, but that isn't enough. What I discovered is that STEEM just extremely limited on exchanges. Compared to other cryptocurrencies on the market of the same size and rank, STEEM is listed on the fewest exchanges. Some of the exchanges don't actually support STEEM further compounding the problem. I'll explain.

Let's look at the exchanges

• Upbit - A Korean exchange and has the bulk of STEEM and SBD market volume. The problem is you need to be able to read Korean to use the exchange. That is incredibly limiting the buyers.
• Binance - This was a recent addition, but they refuse to list SBD which is a major hindrance.
• Bittrex - They handle the third largest STEEM volume. The problem is Bittrex is a US company and is soon to fall under US regulations. This is a turn off for many people. Bittrex also has no customer support. Something goes wrong, you have no support. Many people choose not to use Bittrex entirely.

Here is a list of completely useless exchanges

• Poloniex - This exchange is completely useless for STEEM and SBD. STEEM and SBD wallet transactions have been disabled for months. Even if you buy STEEM, you can't move the STEEM off the exchange.
• HitBTC - Again, wallet issues make this exchange useless for STEEM
• Open Ledger DEX - 24 hour Volume is around $2,000 which is clearly a sign that it is not a widely used exchange for STEEM.
• RuDEX - Volume is 24 hour Volume is around $50. Not even on the radar.

What does this mean?

Bittrex is the only external English language exchange that trades both STEEM and SBD. Binance supports many languages, but only lists STEEM and not SBD. Upbit doesn't support English which limits users. In comparison to other coins, STEEM is severely isolated to buyers. This is the reason STEEM value is so incredibly low.

Why can't we just get STEEM/SBD listed on exchanges?

Recent news articles have announced a common practice that exchanges have been using for a very long time. They have been requiring a fee of Millions of dollars to buy a listing. My suspicion is that @ned is refusing these fees and relying entirely on STEEM popularity and STEEM social economy instead of bowing to the ridiculous fees. Some exchanges don't limit the fees to listing. They require a maintenance fee. This is what I suspect happened at Poloniex. This exchange has disabled the STEEM and SBD wallets for approximately 4 months because they most likely require a maintenance fee. The wallets are supposedly under "Maintenance". Yeah sure Poloniex. What ridiculous fee are you charging?

What should the real price of STEEM be?

Given the available Liquid STEEM, the price of STEEM should be around $109. This is because the majority of STEEM is locked away in SP. I predict that any listing of STEEM/SBD on a major multilingual exchange will cause the price of STEEM to skyrocket. If you are a programmer of a trading bot, you could program a bot to trade on the news of STEEM/SBD listing and easily double your money.

What can we do to get STEEM listed on an exchange?

Not much. I think it is likely that @ned will have to free up some money to pay the ridiculous fees the exchanges are asking. However, @ned could be in a position to profit on boosting the price of STEEM. I know that sounds shady, but sometimes we must play and pay the game that the exchanges created. It could be that since the market is down, then the asking price of listing a coin may be discounted. Another option is to organize Steemians to create accounts on various exchanges, then put support tickets in mass to the exchanges to request a STEEM/SBD listing. Again, shady, but the exchanges are operating a shady practice of charging for listing a coin.

Ultimately, if STEEM/SBD gets listed on multiple exchanges, then the price of STEEM can MOON.

I hope you enjoyed reading my Blog. Please remember to Upvote, Resteem, and Follow. Thank you.

---------------------------------------

For a breakdown of how Steemit Rewards system works:

https://steemit.com/steemit/@socky/steemit-rewards-breakdown-a-simplified-explanation-with-illustrations