It is indeed a strange move. I cannot imagine that it has something to do with the seperation from the frontend (steemit.com) from the blockchain into a seperate company.
Still I do wonder how mcuh impact that this will have on the future. It all will depend on the progress of the SMTs!
Still I did power up today. Steem will easily be capable of climbing back to at least a $!
I look at it like this. This is the second batch of devs to close shop on this project, not a great sign overall.