I have said for quite some time, that pegging such a large proportion of Steem's market cap to the dollar was stupid. Well, when the dollar is up, it sucks big time. But now the dollar is collapsing (it must be, this can be the only explanation) now, nobody is getting paid steem in their rewards, which has dried up the supply and now, look at the price!
http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/steem/
vs
http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/steem-dollars/
One might surmise then, an unintentional feature of the pegging algorithm kills steem hard when the dollar is up, but when the dollar is going down...
I had counted on about $2000 coming out of my powerdown. Now it could be a lot closer to $3000. If the market keeps hammering the dollar like this, I'm gonna be the one giving out charity to my good friends. This is nice. It is the just desserts that I have earned, in my opinion. I may not be all that keen on steem, especially since I have got up close and personal with the software that runs this network, but it's working out pretty good for me right now.
Update
After some thinking about it, I have realised, and I think some people with a million tied up in cryptos, or so, have realised they can pump the Steem price by pumping the SBD price. Anyone who has been watching the rewards coming in from their posts surely has noticed there is no Steem in it, only SBD. So the supply of new Steem is restricted to what people can sell from powering down. I'd be willing to bet that has pushed the effective inflation rate of Steem below 5%, which is why it's going up, and will continue to while people keep bidding up SBD.
The SBD is becoming a bit of a joke as a pegged asset though.