I've seen people who are more knowledgeable than myself speculate that STEEM will most likely hit 1.60-1.70 soon as you've said here. I can't recall their reasoning but I'd guess it is based on a previous support / resistance level .

I don't think STEEM will go any lower than it already has. My guess is we see at least another week or two of consolidation in this range (1.20-1.60) and the next move outside that range will be to the upside. Honestly it could stay in this range for quite awhile but I think we'll see a good sized move up within a month.

I suspect a lot of people started powering down in May and June when STEEM was higher (which is a 13 week process) which would help to explain the ~13 week downtrend we saw over the summer. @me-tarzan has posted a few things about how the powerdown amount has levelled off and actually decreased recently. Here's one of his posts (he does a lot of data collection posts) https://steemit.com/steemit/@me-tarzan/on3lj-thursday-s-power-down-is-below-thursday-s-average-line-daily-steem-power-down

I've also read people speculating STEEM will double or triple in the next year or less. Fingers crossed!