Yeah, people use STEEM as a tradeable asset, not as a reward system. Largest problem is that there are no merchants or any other people other than Steemit users that use STEEM and traders. I found that the flaw with Steemit is the ability to dump. STEEM should have been pitched to merchants before being able to be withdrawed from wallets.
Yeah, it hit around $4+ high and dropped continuously but I honestly saw it and braced for impact. Right now, it's trading at around half of what it was.
We need payment processors and merchants to accept it. This is honestly how it can skyrocket with supply and demand.