Bear in mind that 2016 was near the depths of what was otherwise a crypto bear market. There wasn't much competition in terms of top 10, all values were much lower, etc. Completely different market landscape, so this isn't entirely a Steem issue.
That said a lot of Steem's fall in rankings is a Steem issue IMO. We haven't conveyed a strong value proposition to crypto investors, either because we don't have one or don't communicate it well.
Comparing like with like, Ethereum, Ripple. Dash, even Nem were already around (not to mention Litecoin or Lisk). The market was the same and has been the same for all of them and yet if you look at the performances of the Top 10 from July 31, 2016, only MaidSafe Coin has performed worse than Steem. No other crypto from back then had a worse performance when compared to Bitcoin. I don't see how you can say this is not entirely a Steem issue.
We DO have a very strong value proposition, of that I used to have a strong hunch and I invested on that hunch, but now I have formal proof. I believe and am not afraid to say that we have THE HIGHEST value proposition in the current blockchain landscape. We sit on a bloody gold mountain.
If we didn't manage to convey it is because we have been targeting the wrong audience The "crypto investors" cannot see the true value proposition of Steem.
We have a bloody Stradivarius in the hands of Paganini but he's playing in front of an audience of DEAF PEOPLE
Forget the "crypto investors" we should be focusing on "normies"
No reason we shouldn't be in the top 20. I think our user retention keeps a lot of potential investors away. The beta tag can't save us forever.