Yes, the price of Steem fluctuates, but that does not change the fact that being in the top position is highly sought after and potentially lucrative. Maybe in a few months the price will go to $20.
Pumpkin's vote is currently worth 15742MV. If a witness has just that vote alone they will currently be in position 47 in the active witness list, so that puts them in a visible position on the current iteration of the witness voting page in Steemit.com. You are correct then that this vote is not enough to get into the top 20. What I was thinking when I wrote this post, but did not articulate, was that It will be pretty damned hard to beat recipients of the Pumpkin vote, without having one. I have updated the post to be more accurate, thanks.
Ok, but on the other side of the coin so to speak, the price could also be at .01 cents or .15 like it was 12 months ago.. I hope not..lol But it could. But yes I do believe the future of Steem/Steemit and price is going to be great. We have SMT's coming, and we have "communities" coming.
The pumpkin vote would not alone put you in the witness voting page for top 50.
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Ah yes, I am really tired here and was looking at the list of active witnesses on Drakos' page since that's the only list I usually pay attention to. Currently the pumpkin only vote would get you to position 52. So with that single vote, roughly all the witnesses above the current position 100 would actually be in the top 50.
I'm willing to challenge that theory as well . But who else has as many MV as Pumpkin to get a vote from to compare data? Clearly you can see the largest influence on the top 50 witnesses comes from that single user. These are things I learned myself as well man weeks ago and anyone could. Quite easily in fact. One could assume from the given data that a vote from @pumpkin or someone similar could make any witness a main contender for top 50 overnight (Active or not). I attended the ramble last evening and was told not to ask questions about that user so this is a funny coincidence. The obscurity behind a resource with that much influence is indeed intriguing to say the least. Especially if it's intention is not to produce anything beneficial rather than ingest which may not be the case. If in fact it's intentions are rather malevolent, then anyone in collusion with such a resource would also have to come into question. The truth is, the anonymity of the blockchain prevents this resource from impeachment. For all we know it could be a.... (boy hush yo' mouth) :P.....Hell I'd task @pumpkin to vote for my witness any day, just as anyone else would. My projects are positive and definitely what i believe to be in-line with non destructive, decentralized motive. Meanwhile, it's plain sad to see a perfectly capable (expensive) witness machine sitting idle doing nothing when there are phantom witnesses listed with many blocks missing and screwy price feeds holding massive voting weight. But us smaller witnesses are competing with them. There is no long slow hard earned way to become a witness anymore. That's all a facade. I did it within the first week joining the network and maintain 2 nodes as well. There are also not 14,000 of them as some have even suggested. Even if there are, Unless the system is completely broken or god forbid (bullshit) A decent vote from Donald Trumpsfeld the almighty could definitely push you into a more valuable position. Granted, some guys on that roster "check out" so to speak. Ya have to be your own judge of those things when it comes down to it. BUT, there are others that seem like they "drank the kool-aid" as some would say :) All ya gotta do is look man, there is a lot of shit out here that just beg curiosity. Wow I can't believe you said some of this lol this is nice... real nice.
Who told you not to talk about Pumpkin?