That would certainly make sense and likely is part of the drag. Which means we might need to see some real development and deployment of the lightning network before we see a meaningful price increase in bitcoin.
Regarding steem, that is certainly possible. It seems the value of many of the coins currently is not directly related to potential of the project even in the slightest. I think the coming year will go a long ways in discovering a more honest price for many of these projects.
Don't get me wrong, we owe a lot of BTC, but the bloom is a bit off the rose on that one. For all the hype, I still can't walk into a store and buy a couch with BTC. I still can't viably take it at my own art gallery because the confirm times suck. So I have to pay fees to some third party who assumes the risk. Given that, I might as well just take MasterCard. Ideologies are great but if they can't be readily translated into functional application....?
I have been watching Steem and the market for a while now... as you suggest valuations seem unrelated to the potential of projects. From where I am sitting, Steem is under increasing "upwards pressure." We have the most capable blockchain out there; easily the highest number of transactions; occasionally there are more transactions on our blockchain than ALL OTHERS added together. Weiss ratings sees this as one of only FOUR coins to rate a "B" or better out of hundreds. Now the Chinese IT Ministry ranked Steem no. 2 of the 28 blockchains they looked at. To me, that looks more and more like the pressure building in a champagne bottle... at SOME point, it has to "pop loose" and suddenly we'll be looking at $25.00 Steem because someone, somewhere (with the investment bucks to back it up) suddenly realizes that most of these other projects are little more than houses of cards.
"But that would give Steem the 5-6th largest market cap at over $6.5bn...."
And that's a problem HOW, exactly? As I recall, there was a time when Steem was ranked third in the world... the fact that so many others blew by us is perhaps even more of an indication that it's about time we saw some movement...
Great points. Can't say I disagree with any of them. :)