I love the case and questions you rise in this article. Can't abstain and comment with my opinion on steem. Shortly I think Steem has made a great study case for some of the other CryptoCurrencies and blockchains out there.

For me personally the community around steemit which uses this as a social platform in order to deliver value through content and get payouts is kind of making the price stabilise, not sure how long this will last but it makes the coin a better coin to be used for lending products than anything else out there.