![SBD](https://steemitimages.com/DQmf9jexgYQHwpre2g5T4nD91Fjc3YMtbseZdsdRreBMYKu/image.png)

Having lived through the great crypto winter of '17 I feel confident in the notion that this steady drop over the last few days is healthy and is essentially necessary for Steem dollars to maintain its positive upwards trend in growth. Remember, between November 20th and the first week of December we saw an unprecedented run from just under a dollar to over $7. Expectations of some are tempered, as seen [here, at stocksgazette.com](https://stocksgazette.com/2018/01/04/expected-steem-steem-correction-underway/),  who assumed that Steem trading on exchanges will not sustain it's recent increases in  value - however, Steemit/Steem continues to see ever increasing expansion of it's user base with [over 8000 new users in just a single day!](https://steemkr.com/steemit/@penguinpablo/steem-stats-report-january-04-2018-welcome-8-638-new-steem-users). The piece from Stocks Gazette not only makes the error of claiming that Steem Power cannot be converted back to Steem, but also make the error of defining Steem as a niche/novelty type of token - rather than recognising it's full potential as an evolutionary economic force for our planet as a whole. More analysis of Steem's userbase can be seen in [this excellent post](https://steemit.com/statistics/@arcange/steemit-statistics-20171216-en) from @arcange, 

With the news that Mark Zuckerberg is [looking into crypto use within social media](https://www.coindesk.com/zuckerburg-study-cryptocurrency-quest-decentralize-facebook/), it seems likely that this is an avenue that will be further developed in 2018 as the pyramidal corporations seek to wrestle control of a world that in ever increasing numbers wants to be free and uncensored! Steemit continues to lead the way in terms of crypto integration into social networking and surely has a lot of future potential. 

The nature of SBDs maintaining a [USD equivalent](https://globalcoinreport.com/heres-take-advantage-steem-dollars-sbd-run-right-now/) means that expectations should be tempered, however, the long-term health of Steem as a currency and blockchain seems to be in a good place, thanks to it's intelligent design, it's great supporting community and dev team. 

I think we're currently in seeing a correction that will eventually bring a reliability to Steem dollars that could continue to have a positive effect on the community at large. The platform, and by extension Steem dollars and SBDs, are healthier than ever. 


Wishing you well,
Ura Soul

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