This is pretty close to what I've been thinking. Nice post and good sign pun. I can't buy the tether swap theory at all. Whether it's a pool of benefactors for "Steemians" or themselves, or "both" as rationalization for being Robin Hood, it's hard to complain.
I hope that the price ultimately returning back to normal won't cause a crash from Steemians' emotional highs because powering up SBD for 5-6x Steem is pretty damn exciting. Expectations will be skewed for active users who think this will last.
You've hit the nail on the head. We had much the same experience twice in the past 6 months - once, when we dropped back down from highs near $3, and again when HF 19 came and the large rewards pool backlog got drained. My vote trended downward in value from $15 to under $4 and posting activity saw similar declines.
Now that we're printing money again (sure nice to have that power, isn't it?), all of a sudden the Alexa rank is back down (up)..."bake a brownie and the bastards come running."
Not to mention the artificial buying pressure this creates for Steem itself as people continue to rush to swap SBD for them. The Steem is then powered up by most and "held" to create more price stability for a new floor. ...Ignorance is bliss?
I just read one of @penguinpablo's analysis posts, and for the last week or so the amount of sbd traded for steem (on the internal market, I assume) was WAY down. This answers my question from a week ago about how amazed I was that I was able to get 6 steem for each SBD on the internal market. I couldn't believe that the price of steem wasn't going up. Clearly people have been either holding sbd or perhaps buying other coins with it. I hope they keep doing it, because I'm looking forward to powering up with some coming payouts.
"Clearly people have been either holding sbd or perhaps buying other coins with it."
Yep, this is what is happening. People are holding it and/or buying more of it than they are selling, which is what continues to keep the price high.