❓Answering Common Questions: Wow! Why did my payouts go WAY up? What's this hardfork I keep hearing about? 🍴
I bet for most of you this was a very pleasant surprise!
Yesterday Steemit released it latest update to the Steem blockchain rules, called a Hard Fork (19). These will periodically happen, each one having different effects. Yesterday's Hard Fork changed how much votes give, how many votes you get and tweaked curation rewards (from voting.) So let's step through a few of the more common questions as well as my personal take on this update.
Q: Why did my payout amounts change so drastically?
This Hard Fork was nicknamed "Equality" since it was changing how much influence people got from their Steem Power. Up until now influence ran off of Steem Power^2 (squared), meaning that someone with 10 times your Steem Power had 100 times the influence. But now, it's linear, meaning that someone with 10 times your Steem Power has 10 times the influence. Hence the name equality..it brought the influence between differing sized users much much closer.
Q: Wow! Why does my vote give so much more now?!?!
Along the same lines as above...your vote is how you influence things. So the influence exerted by your Steem Power is much closer to other users (especially big ones) meaning your vote is worth more now. This is also coupled with your 100% votes (either if your new without the vote slider bar or set at full if you do.)
Brand New users are now able to give a penny right out of the gate!
Q: Can I cast less votes now without it draining my voting power percentage?
First...if you would like more information on voting power percentage and the slider bar read THIS GUIDE.
Now the short answer is that you used to be able to cast 40 votes a day (while allow your voting power regenerate) you can now only cast 10 votes a day (while allow your voting power regenerate). However, each of your 100%/Full Strength votes has 4 times the strength as before. So essentially if you want, you can give a single post or comment FOUR UPVOTES worth of money. If you don't vote very much, you'll probably find this to be easy. But if you vote a lot, you'll need to use that slider bar more than ever before.
Just to give a few "Mathy" details:
- We regenerate 20% voting power percent in 24 hours
- BEFORE the Hard Fork each 100%/Full Power vote reduced your vote power percent by 0.5%.
- NOW, after the the Hard Fork each 100%/Full Power vote reduced your vote power percent by 2%.
So be careful not to drain your vote power down too much or you won't be able to give as much money as you would be able to otherwise, as well as a reduction in the curation rewards you can earn.
Q: Did curation rewards change?
From what I've read, there was a tweak to the curation reward formula, but it should end up being about the same as it was before. The change was just to offset the changes in voting. However, for the next few days to a week, I suspect you'll see higher curation...returning to the pre-Hard Fork levels after that.
Q: What does @Sykochica think about the Hark Fork 19?
I've been rather excited about this for a while. Being able to give more with your votes is exciting. Hell, even brand new people are able to to give a penny now. And to me this is a really big deal. For some of us in the past, it took a looooong time to be able to give a penny away consistently. It was one of those really exciting milestones here on Steemit. Now, everyone gets this joy right out of the gate, ideally allowing 'good' people to give away pennies to other 'good' people.
I remember a time when I had 3-4000 Steem Power and couldn't even do that. This made me feel like my votes didn't really matter, so I didn't really care a ton on what I voted on or how much. But NOW, I really try to keep my vote power percent high, so I can keep giving larger amounts when I upvote things. I get to help bolster tags that I'd love to see more posts in, but haven't had large payouts available in the past.
My concern, however is that new and smaller users (everyone really) now need to pay more attention to what they vote on. If you vote on spam, simple copy/paste stuff, etc than we will just see more of that. Anytime lazy people, scammers, etc feel they can make easy money they will...doing whatever they can to game the system. So I do please beg each of the voters out there..pay attention to what you vote on now. I do NOT want to see scammers or people who just run bot armies draining our reward pool.
Remember that ALL of my guide posts are eligible to be added as entries to the Steem Center Wiki or Operation Translation.
Click here to find out how these can earn you Steem!!
Feel free to ask me anything. I'm here to Help!
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❓SPECIAL Answering Common Questions: How can I get 1 on 1 Mentoring Help?👩🏫
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❓Answering Common Questions: Where does the money come from? 💵
❓Answering Common Questions: Should I use 100% Steem Power or 50%/50% Payouts for my Post❓
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Answering Common Questions about Voting and Curation
Don't Miss the Show! Follow the Steemit Talk Podcast (STP) Account
New STP Website!!
Are you new to Steemit and Looking for Answers? - Try https://www.steemithelp.net.
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@sykochica This is genius information. Bookmarked. I have some reading to do don't I? One million thanks for your clarity and brevity in helping us new people to learn and understand. Cheers!
Thank you! I'm glad it was helpful...that's what keeps me writing these. I've got a post out from this morning asking for any questions...if you had any in mind. As well as a 'newbie' cast planned for this sundays @steemittalk podcast recording should you want to join. :)
@sykochica, I will keep my mind open for any questions. Mostly, I just want to dive head first into it and learn as I go. I started listening to @steemittalk too and will continue to do so. I'll pass though as being a guest. I am not sure I'd have much to contribute. I will look for it though when it comes out. So much to absorb. Oh, here is a question...not that I'm anywhere prepared for this, but here goes: Is there a step by step process that simply breaks down getting money out of steemit and into the real world so I can buy a burger?
Oh nice!! Definitely love to have you join the podcast recording..even if just a live listener! :D It's really just a fun, relaxed time.
To answer your question..I made a post on just that:
https://steemit.com/steem-help/@sykochica/answering-common-questions-how-do-i-spend-money-from-my-steemit-wallet
Great post @sykochica! Linked and mentioned your article here: https://steemit.com/crypto-news/@champagnecrypto/why-is-steem-now-paying-more Keep BOOMIN over there!
Ok, I finally understand this. But, was that much taken from whales to be disbursed like this?
There was a good amount of influence lost by the whales. The more SP held, the more the disparity was...and the vast majority of total SP was held by whales. (not making a statement of right/wrong here..just what it is.)
Now, if curation rewards end up staying the same or increasing, it shouldn't directly impact their pocketbook unless they made most their money by upvoting their own stuff.
Personally, I'm excited for more people to have more influence. Not only to give them excitement, but also to give a better chance for more categories to be built up since there are more people to give $ to their own areas of interest.
However, there are some down sides, like the motivation to self vote everything. Posts I totally understand...good comments sure...every comment...eh..maybe. But that's solely my take, not trying to tell others what to do...especially when it's not abuse in my eyes.
Thanks for the information. very useful post!
It looks amazing, especially compared to the "dark times", when post received 10$ for 150 votes :)
Yea..this has been pretty mindblowing being able to effect payouts this much. I'm used to giving like 30 cents max. Lol
I definitely try to upvote 100% (or close) original content. Unless it's a friend, or the title is really enticing, I'll usually skip any thumb that looks like stock photography.
Hehe...the friend part has been really tough lately with all the influx of people our group knows from facebook. I hit the point in the night of "ok...no more voting till morning." Then three friends intro posts go up...'facepalm.' Lol
Definitely a first world problem though. :P
Thank you for this post, I stil read everyone of them but just can not vote so I reply to let everyone know I read their post for all their trouble and effort.
I'm happy to be helpful! I do totally understand not being able to vote of everything (especially since the HF)...I appreciate the read!
Yep. the vote power drain is real!!
Hehe..I feel you there! That's going to be one of the bigger things to get used to.
I definitely think once everyone adapts to the new system, it's really going to help cut down on spam and garbage posting.
I sure hope so...that's one of my shorter term concerns. Will def be interesting to see how it plays out.
I am rather pleased with the results of HF19 so far. My earnings have skyrocketed! I'm just worried that with the change in vote power there will be less voting going on. I suppose that is an added incentive to up my posting game.
I'm with you there...almost all my posts doubled in value when the HF hit. But yea...I do think many people will tank their voting power before realizing quite what happened..so less votes for a little bit. But ideally people learn how to balance things out (I'm still working on that, lol.)