what’s an SBD peg?

The intended system design of Steem from the beginning was that SBD would be a stable store of value that was pegged to USD, so it always held a value of $1. All of the payout systems are designed as if this were true. For instance, if SBD were $1, the number at the bottom of your posts would be USD instead of the difficult-to-understand hybrid we have now.

But no plan ever survives contact with the enemy, as my friend Lois likes to say. The actual market has been valuing SBD quite a bit higher, which makes everything that was designed for it to be $1 act very strangely.