Exchanges still play an important part in crypto prices and if STEEM will be delisted from the major ones, in case of a hardfork that would piss the Chinese entity trying to control Steem, then we would end up with worthless internet money. However, getting a new crypto and the respect from the crypto world, would put a lot of value on our backs and would even increase the chance of listing it on quite some notable exchanges. For the moment though there's still a lot of uncertainty.