If you’ve been on Steemit for a while, you’ve seen the price of Steem tokens burst higher, crash lower, and muddle through going seemingly nowhere. Sudden spikes caused by Korean crypto daytraders, FUD-related nosedives, sideways languishing because of concerns about the liquidity of the Italian sovereign debt market. Yeah, I made that last one up. Nobody’s good at explaining sideways markets. Through it all, new Steem has been created daily. Actually, new Steem has been created every three seconds. And most of it has been paid out to authors and curators. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably earned some of it. You’ve griped about the Trending page or seen other people gripe about it. You’ve been fascinated or bored by whale wars. You’ve spent hours writing a post that’s earned $0.02 and seconds on a comment that’s earned $17. And all this time, every three seconds, more Steem has been created. So far at least, it’s been *relatively* easy to earn Steem. Oh, I know, *it’s not fair, the whales have a huge advantage*. Well, duh. The whales here basically all gambled. They used real world currencies to buy into a startup crypto *because of a whitepaper*, an idea. They got lucky. Yay them. Look, I’m just this Schmoe. I joined the site a bit over a year ago, posted a few things that I’d written for earlier failed blogs, earned zilch, bought a bit of Steem Power here and there, wrote some new stuff specifically for Steemit, eventually earned a bit of Steem and SBD along the way, purchased dribs and drabs of it here and there, earned some more, yadda, yadda, yadda. Nothing fancy, just slow growth. No existing YouTube, FaceBook, or Instagram base to build from. No stellar social networking skills. Not even a hint of a niche. Just grinding it out, like a mid-stakes poker player. And here I sit, thirteen months later. Out of the 980,000+ Steemit accounts, I now rank 1,826th in terms of Steem Power. It’s been *relatively* easy. So far. But it’s going to get harder. A lot harder. Steem’s inflation rate is slowly decreasing, currently it’s about 8.89% annually. But I’ve done some back-of-the-napkin calculations that show that the number of Steemit accounts is increasing by more than that *monthly*. Something in the range of 10-11% per month over the last few months. So, even with Steemit’s currently slow manual sign-up process, the number of accounts is on track to grow by more than 100% within the next year. And this is before Hard Fork 20, faster on-boarding, or the rollout of Smart Media Tokens. What might the new normal be if the number of accounts increases significantly *at the same time that the demand for Steem tokens is increasing significantly*? Will Steem still be *relatively* easy to acquire?

A few of my older but related posts: Steem Power: Get It? Got It. Good! Building Your Steem Power: Exponential Growth is Your Friend

*Disclaimer: This should not be construed as financial advice. I am not a registered financial advisor; I don't even play one on TV. Do your own due diligence. Batteries not included. Objects may be larger than they appear in mirror. Some assembly required. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.* *Pixabay image*