Steem is starting to find itself in a position I once criticized other coins harshly for - having the majority of its volume driven by a single exchange denominated in a non-dominant currency.
Generally, a healthy market prefers to have a wide variety volume from several different regionally-based exchanges and national currencies. This limits the potential for market shocks such as currency or exchange rate changes, geopolitical developments in the exchanges nation of operation, and other unexpected events.
Concentration of volume has potentially grave (or potentially groovy) implications for both future liquidity and price (depending on which way you want things to go), and is a factor anyone who is a buyer or seller of Steem in the near term should probably take into consideration.
In this case, the exchange is Upbit and the currency in question is the Korean Won. Volume for Steem is nearly 80% on Upbit (a major Korean exchange), whereas the volume for SBD at Upbit is at an alarmingly high 97.5%.
Here's an overview of Upbit's total volume on their top 20 coins. Both Steem and Steem-Backed Dollars make the list, oddly with SBD leading the way on volume:
If you tour the top 20 cryptocurrencies, you won't find any others where Upbit/Korea is leading the volume. In fact, you won't even find them with a majority or plurality of volume on any top coins other than Steem (and SBD).
The good news is that Korea has an active KR community on Steemit. Some of this demand is likely organic. The potentially bad news is Korea is also fast to hop on any trading train, and the culture loves to speculate. As a result, the majority of this demand is probably NOT organic.
What is Korea's fascination with Steem and SBD? SBD could be appealing for traders due to the low market cap, but that doesn't explain the Steem volume. Does the Korean community misunderstand the SBD->Steem conversion process? Has Haejin caused a stampede of demand with his fellow Korean traders? (j/k)
I wish I had answers for you, but all I really have is questions. I would welcome discussion on the matter in the comments.
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Everyone comes here expecting to make lots of money - some do, most don’t.
If none of them invest in STEEM, as seems to be the case 99% of the time, then where does the price rise come from?
Have any of these super new YouTube amazing fantastic unbelievable trending superstar 100m follower awesome bloggers - the ones that everyone is fawning over - invested any $ in STEEM??
.........
I would say no to the youtubers buying in. I did see David Packman buying in earlier this year. He did quite a few posts before doing that. But most get sponsored in to build momentum for the platform! They make some “free money” up front, while their payouts mostly slip over time. But in getting paid upfront , they are able to generate a stable cash flow while consistently earning more Steem Power. This becomes more lucrative over time and their risk is minimal. There isn’t a place online that has this type of incentive structure for content creators or curators! STEEM will rise slow but steady, lagging BTC and the overall market! People like me who don’t have a previous following can get on here and slowly buy in to gain more traction. It takes time and I’ve never been more incentivized to take content and curation so serious! That’s why I’m hear! But, this was exactly the type of great intel needed to truly understand the real dangers of this investment! Was this mentioned in the Weiss report? I haven’t heard any mention of this from anyone else. I appreciate the heads up!! Upvote / Resteem
That's a good question. Some of our media-creator types have met with solid success here, such as DavidPakman. Check him out.
Yep, I have seen him and many others - and don't get me wrong, these personalities are very welcome and very much needed on this platform. They will mostly all do very well out of it and that is absolutely fine
But their success sends out an unhelpful message for others wrt what is needed to do well here - for most 'normal' posters this success will just not happen
Whenever I see a comment along the lines of "I produce great content but nobody even sees it, it's not fair" - which is many times per day - I check the poster's wallet and most of the time they have 40 or 50 Steem Power, mostly delegated when they opened the account - i.e. they have invested not one single $ of their own money - they have no skin in the game
Without getting into the naivety of the thinking, people need to understand that 99% of the time an investment of both their time and 'some' of their money is needed - neither alone is likely to be enough. Unfortunately, they take their cues from the Youtube superstars, who are the exception to the rule
Having said that, I am confident that enough will learn over time and this will slowly increase the demand for Steem - in part driven by the well known arrivals bringing in volume
Unlike the complainers you mention, I was warned not to expect much in the way of earnings or views until after months of networking and posting, so I'm not even slightly disgruntled. I find the site fascinating and enjoyable. Connecting with people on it is a thrill. It will not surprise me when site-related cryptocoins gain in value.
However, you just said something that took me aback. "I check the poster's wallet and most of the time they have 40 or 50 Steem Power, mostly delegated when they opened the account - i.e. they have invested not one single $ of their own money"
Hmm. I def had to invest some of my own USD (via ETH) before I lifted my Steem Power past 40. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm fine with making that investment. But I wonder: If I had complained, and if one of the complaints you saw had been mine, would you also be presuming about me that I had not invested anything?
Hi, there is no need to presume anything on the blockchain. I can just check your wallet and see your transfers of STEEM and SBD from Blocktrades.
If all new users did the same it would be great for the price of STEEM, it's a shame that most don't
I would definitely recommend continuing to purchase more and powering up whenever you can - it's much more enjoyable as your vote value increases, and hopefully it will turn out to be a good investment
It used to be exchanges in China where few cryptos had high volume against CNY. It shipped to Korea now-a-days and in future, can be shipped to another country. I believe its popular (or easier) to trade against native fiats (KRW/CNY) than BTC in those exchanges. It's not a bad thing though since in western countries, it is hard to trade with fiats, therefore, most cryptos are traded against BTC. Center of trading is moving around: Japan (MtGox), China (Huboi, OKcoin, BTCC) now Korea (Upbit, Bithumb, CoinOne).
I don't think that this is something that should allarm us. After all, I don't think the community will just go extint if let's say, Korea jumps on another crypto train as u reffered at it. Ideed, it might suffer a little but i believe that people in here are devoted to it and it will grow back. And even though this is unlickely to happend, they can't dillute the currency so fast that it would affect us in a very bad way!
A substantial price drop is the exact type of thing that should worry those of us who are investors int his platform. Given investors are the reason any payouts exist at all, it's a concern for everyone if it is a potential risk.
Never really thought of that. That can't be good at all. If they decide to sell due to restrictions we all will loose out.
That is certainly a risk of concentrated regional trading.
I think that most western steemians and newcomers are broke. Only hard working people with money can buy steem. And then the broke westerners start to telling them how to vote and how to spread their steem power.
Market is full with the bitcoin but steem is also great.
I dont think we should worried about that as steemit growing everyday.
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Great questions today. Thank you for including "Groovy". I live in South Korea and do not want the situation to be grave. I began on Steemit just to see what would happen. Now I'm at the point I will need some kind of exchange.
I have no answers only one more question. Is there a way to directly exchange Steem for Korean won?
Wow, that is very interesting, and slightly concerning. I think we def have to see growth and diversification to keep expectations high, the sooner further improvements come the better.
I think that many has misunderstood the mean of sbd and steem as the real value should be in steem and not in sbd..
I think though that steemit will continue to grow with or without the major trading aspect from Korea. But a lot of the value in steem can go away, and will need to rebuild with help from the rest of the exchanges.
Super
Steem has shown tremendous pace at Korean markets and overall also it has crossed 11k Mark which is really heartening but we know it's still very volatile. it needs to stabilize for a longer run just to make crypto a reality in commercial business market and for Its globalisation
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After several months since the initial Korean pump back in December, I don't think Koreans are still confused about the way SBD works. This is likely all deliberately for some reason with a full understanding about what SBD is and the differences with steem
@exyle touched on this last week - do you think that the huge investment currently going into Bidbots via SBD has moved it away from $1/holding the price up?
"Has Haejin caused a stampede of demand with his fellow Korean traders? (j/k)"
I had to laugh at this comment. Wouldn't have even considered it, but with over > 22K followers, who knows how many of them are Koreans.
I see the risks you point out. I wonder if the volume means awareness is growing, even if concentrated in one country. But if they are just trading, then little value would be gained with the risk of a dump in the future. Steemit seems like a global phenomenon, so I'd expect volume to be diversified.
this is truly worrisome as Korea could also be a source of bad news for crypto leading to market crash. Haejin you say? hmm. is he Korean ? If so, i truly hope his huge followers are not koreans buying up sbd!
It isn't alarming until these Korean investors decide to dump their SBD and Steem and move onto something else. Then its very alarming if your livelihood is dependent on SBD over $3 or more.
On the other hand, if your one who believes that SBD is supposed to be at its pegged $1 value, then you would be very happy to see the Korean traders get out and SBDs go back to $1
Just means theres more room for growth globally ;P up up and awaaaay
Hi,
Nice to read about you and you posts and views. I am into steemit from august 2017, I am interested in photography and I am also into crypto trading and investing,I have followed you so you can also follow me. Let us all join hand and work with one common objective to make steemit reach to great height.
Best Of luck
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