alization. The platform has to work toward good capitalization: exchange volume should be continuously improving and long-term investors need to have good reasons to purchase STEEM. As long as the network keeps growing, there is a compelling case for based on expected growth; eventually, a critical mass of users will create good incentives for publishers and advertisers to aggregate STEEM demand as well.
Customer Acquisition Costs. SteemIt platform payouts are currently highly inefficient; as a sanity check, note that most introduceyourself pieces are trading “well above par” as early adopters are able to take advantage of a small, inefficient market at the moment. As more users join and the market becomes more efficient, payouts are likely to decrease, thus increasing over all CAC. It is important that SteemIt achieves a critical mass of users before CAC falls below the level needed to outbid the network effects of other platforms.
Alternative Applications. A Steem-based Wikipedia, Yelp, or Craigslist are compelling applications that can be attempted on the Steem platform. It would be interesting to ascertain whether early diversification into these applications could constitute a compelling hedge by the Steem team against the risks of playing in the highly competitive social market.
Overall, we love what we see on SteemIt so far! It’s beautiful to watch a social network form in real time.

Jake Brukhman is co-founder at CoinFund, a blockchain technology research firm and proprietary cryptoasset investment vehicle. CoinFund’s team brings together expertise in high technology, quantitative finance, private equity research, and social innovation research to generate insights into this exciting growth space. CoinFund provides consulting and research services to investors and companies interested in blockchain technology. Follow us on Twitter or join the discussion on our open community Slack.