Always Power Down
There was a post the other day by @trending asking why we shouldn't all just always power down. He argued that it was essentially costless since you still get "interest" while powering down, and I responded that it's not entirely true.
There is some cost to always power down: In the time after your VESTS have been converted into Steem, and the time you choose to power it up again if you choose to take that option, the price of VESTS per Steem will have increased at least a little. Thus you will be taking a small opportunity cost every week. The larger cost though is that you're creating for yourself a time and cognitive overhead, every week you must remember and set aside time to make a decision about what to do with your (highly inflationary) Liquid Steem. So if you choose to always Power Down, Steem Power is no longer a 'fire and forget' investment, no longer a purely passive income which you can check up on every few months, as just another part of your long term investment portfolio.
Despite that though, "Always Power Down" is probably a good option for many users here. The flexibility benefits as argued by @trending are pretty huge. Right now on Bittrex SBD are trading at the equivalent of $0.83. Buying SBD at a price like that and converting it to Steem is a gamble, but it's one with about a 20% edge. The result of many plays should be a lot of profit. The opportunity and flexibility to enforce the peg and make more money doing so, or to divest from Steem if necessary, should be more than worth the cost for those who are already quite engaged with the Steem platform.
I still didn't get it: should I always power down? I've been only powering up every time I receive SBD.
Power Up, then Always Power Down if you're willing to check up on it every week. There's a lot of opportunity to profit. If you're not willing to check it on a regular schedule, just leave it powered up.
A point I forgot to make was that participating in the peg will help long term confidence in the platform. If nobody uses the peg, then Steem Dollars are not what they say on the tin. New users will lose some confidence seeing that their "dollars" are worth a measly $0.80
Interesting take on this. I haven't read the original post, but I was thinking about the same thing yesterday.
In any case, for now I do not intend to start powering down yet :)
Also if the price trend ends up being down (due to that 0.19% inflation) you could end up increasing your holdings (assuming you trade wisely).
Hi! This post has a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 11.7 and reading ease of 56%. This puts the writing level on par with Michael Crichton and Mitt Romney.