Steemit has literally nothing to do with peertracks afaik. Different team, different code, different target market.
They used the Graphene block chain. I figured maybe the back dealings are closely affiliated. Maybe not.
The pumping shares of musicians had Dan's fingerprints on it. He always designs these weird Rube Goldberg machines that do strange economic incentives.
Peertracks is, or at least was (not sure any more) a direct project of the Bitshares community, so he was probably involved at some level before he left Bitshares. The basic design probably originates in that era. I don't think he is involved at all now, but I could be wrong and he is involved in some minimal way.