I think there are a few things happening;
People who are "in it for the money" get their money and cash out without reinvestment. These are the same people who are "Powering Down"
The flood of new people to Steem brings three kinds of people;
- A whole lot of people who think they can "get rich quick" so they bring no value
- A few people who bring something of value but don't understand how to help Steem grow so they "cash out" too often
- The very tiny number of people who bring value and reinvest at least 50% of the value back into the community
- Crypto is volatile. Investors think they understand things like Bitcoin, and to a lesser degree Ethereum, but they really have no idea how a service based crypto should react to the market. Especially since it has a "strange" tethered value token for payment.
I think to make Steem grow, that we need to encourage more quality posts and reinvestment!