STEEM sees a major rise in first week of trading after the first payout day July 4, 2016
Update July 12: +80% 
Market Cap now > 100M 
Update July 11: +25% 
There has been lots of speculation about which way things would go with the presumed sudden liquidity injections of STEEM made available after the first payout day of July 4, 2016. Not many people expected or publicly predicted a nearly 4x run-up tho! With a currently rather thin sell-book, the volatility in STEEM seems likely to continue, but lots of steemit users are likely smiling with the first week of market performance.
Many openly derided STEEM's chances of success, or weren't able to grasp what sort of disruptive tech this seems to be. Clearly this blossoming network is going to have some growing pains, along with everything else a newborn goes threw - but it seems possible that we could be participating in an entirely new form of trans-humanist social network life-form. The immortality and immutability that a blockchain brings is really a novel concept, one which we are only beginning to grasp the power of. Truth in digital form may bring forth drastic changes in the human condition. May it be so.
May steemit be a tool to help shine a light into the darkness, and help illuminate the path ahead. Many here share in and directly feel the refreshing power that posting to steemit brings - where the group gets stronger and rewarded, instead of some remote faceless corporation, who's intent seems unknown. Creativity (and lots of other attributes) deserves reward.
Many people seem hungry for enabling technologies like this. steemit brings forth at least some form of a meritocracy, and levels the playing field a bit, creating a positive feedback spiral, win/win scenario.
Lets hope it stays up.
Nice rise again today (+25%), now with decent liquidity with over 5M BTS of STEEM now available, sell walls at 215, 240 and 280 BTS
And a mere 12 hours later, that 5M BTS liquidity of STEEM is gone, with now < 2M BTS of STEEM available, and the price has risen another nearly 50% to 320 BTS ea., with 2k STEEM avail @ that price. Wild ride so far. BTS is also up ~20% / 100 sats since July 4th. This story has many appreciable angles, and it's just starting. Hope it scales!