My understanding is that SBD is design to be 1 dollar - exactly 1 dollar. This is done by making it guaranteed by the blockchain that you are able to exchange 1 SBD to steem worth 1 dollar at any particular time.
So basically SBD is a token saying "You can exchange me any time for another asset which has a value of 1 USD". So very similar to the US Dollar at that time when it was pegged to gold. At that time it had a printing on it saying ""Will Pay to the Bearer on Demand" in terms of you could always change it to gold.
Of course the US abandoned the gold standard a long time ago but that is another story. Some similarities are there - The possibility to exchange SBD for steem has been deactivated front end wise. But lets assume that was made to protect people to not change an 6 dollar asset against 1 dollar worth of steem.
Since November 22nd valuation of SBD is climbing - now being around 7.3! USD. And the volume is around 100 million - wow.
Why is SBD trading for more than 1 USD? Who is paying more than 1 USD for basically a paper that says it is worth 1 USD? What is the intention? Only reason I see is pure speculation and "playing" an coin which would show how deformed the market is.
Or is it intentionally done by steem core to increase rewards as a possibility to attract more user (it certainly worked looking at the stats which say that we doubled active users since November).
What is your reasoning for SBD trading higher than 1 USD? Do you see point which I am missing?