The upswing in Steem, Ethereum, and various other coins this week are largely related to the recent Weiss Ratings Report. The report only gave five cryptocurrencies a B- or higher rating. Most notably, Bitcoin didn't make the top five - And Steem did.

The ratings are based on a number of factors including stability of the currency, underlying products, existing market cap / usage, and potential growth. Obviously people are seeing a lot of potential for continued expansion of this platform and for the exponential growth of its user base.

This is great news for the SteemIt platform, as it finally gained some major exposure. I think we will continue to see growth for the next few weeks as more investors become aware of these ratings and more people join onto the platform.

Congrats on the 1500 followers! I'm still working on my first 100, but I hope to catch up some day :)