Unless you think that whales are going to buy back their own or other whales' coins

Only a whale with little to no belief in the platform (or lacking the funds to do so) would not buy back his/others coins at a lower price. I believe (and again, this is simply my own perception of the current situation), most whales are overtly aware that the price was much higher than it deserved to be (as I've pointed out elsewhere on Steemit) at this early stage due to the FOMO effect combined with a well timed pump capitalizing, like every new coins shrewd investors do, on imprudent investors.

I would have to say, of course they are! Who wouldn't sell at .007-.002 if they perceived, through experience in this cryptocurrency ecosystem, that they could buy back at a fraction of that price in a short period of time? Obtaining the same amount or more coins, while also being able to gain more BTC or fiat currency, is a no-brainer for many.

I would have to surmise that most all of us with any experience in the cryptocurrency ecosystem would, and therefore think that most all of us are doing just that. And in that line of thinking, it ends up being a self-fulfilled prophesy.

If I assume it's going to happen, I must be assuming others are also considering the possibility, and as the number of people who notice the trend accumulate, it happens.

That being said, I would also not have been surprised to see STEEM rise to $10 during it's climb. The problem it encountered was the one you brought up back then and continued to do so for some time, the lack of new investors. And by you bringing up that concise fact, repeatedly, I feel it in itself contributed to many people realizing the time had come to begin selling off to buy lower or otherwise.

I'm not suggesting that you caused the price decline, I'm simply expressing that wise investors reading another wise investor voice that opinion simply reaffirmed their own feelings that the bubble was about to pop. And when that feeling happens, those wise enough tend to want to get out before the others. It's a completely natural cycle as I'm sure you are aware.

If it turns out that you are right an only existing whales want to own this coin, then we are dead. There is no way to improve the distribution it will simply collapse into one big circle jerk singularity. The last remaining whale can autoupvote his own posts all day long.

lulz, you've summed it up nicely there. Of course I hope that is not the end scenario, but currently I see no evidence to the contrary. There is plenty of time for that to change though. We are in the very early stages of Steemit. One change can at times whip up a frenzy in the masses and new investors come flocking, even if for a quick in-n-out.

Generally when that moment happens it leaves the price 10%-30% higher than it previously was and then the project either continues to build or it goes stagnant and ultimately dies from lack of continued innovation.

I don't think a lack of continued innovation will be the case with Steemit, as testified by my post concerning too many changes too quickly may be a problem. It's a balancing act that no Dev team has yet perfected, and how could they? No one is perfect and no one knows what the others are thinking at any given time. That's what makes this so much fun! :)

We're all just speculating. And at times, people are saying things to make others contemplate what's been said. Those reading others thoughts are left for themselves to judge why anyone is expressing a certain opinion at any given point in time and act accordingly. Gaining as much information as possible from others is never frowned upon. :)