I have seen the effects already from #newsteem, with the whales that can show what earning on steemit is about like yourself through their manual curation. @trafalgar has apparently been going through some gaming content, in which I received a $4 upvote from his main account (which I did not expect to see).
I will be working towards powering up a little more again soon which while only small, I did get 80 steem powered up today, and will soon start cashing out DEC from steem monsters for additional little bits.
The price of steem I feel will go up soon, with everything happening and it would be refreshing to see it etching up towards the $1 mark again, slowly but surely. :)