I think I can respond to the final thoughts on investment.

Steem does not require continued investment. It simply requires market actors and speculators to see value in it. This subjective valuation , along with buying and selling, is what provides Steem with its market value. If no one invested, Steem would still be printed and could still be valuable because much of the Steem that is created is automatically being created as vests in the form of Steem Power. For example, Bitcoin does not require investment; but similarly, people have to perceive it as being valuable based on its properties. With this in mind, I can see Steem, or a crypto-token like it, being more valuable because of the type of system is is created within.

Lastly, Steem does not require investments because it is being mined and created anyway, regardless of who is investing out of their own pocket . But one of the beautiful things about the platform is that everyone who uses the system gets a stake in it via curating and writing articles. So the system automatically creates investors out of people without them necessarily having to reach in their own pocket.

In my mind, if is all about the subjective valuation of Steem, and not of any kind of investment "backing," other than the auto-investment programmed by the system.

Thanks for your post. I appreciated the questions, and for some I hope others take the time to respond. I hope I helped.

Lastly,