While not totally fool proof... what if something similar to consensus could happen? Instead of people having the power to give money to individual content, the blockchain does based on static reward amounts, and how the entire community feels about a piece of content.

A post is submitted to the blockchain.
Users can then vote for that post. Instead of having investment based voting which can be quickly purchased or controlled by those who are already crypto rich, the weight is determined based on your own blog contributions and the age of your account. However, this is a SLIGHT weight, not one where a single voter can totally over power the entire community if they choose. New accounts are now not hopelessly left behind with no way to catch up.

Votes are tallied for this post.
If the majority of the voters agree that this is indeed worthwhile content it can go to trending or hot based on some calculated algorithm involving the number of votes and the accounts.

Poster and voters are then paid a static reward based on these outcomes rather than the current vote weight system. Everyone who curates can receive an equal reward share, because the current system is confusing and discourages new accounts from participating. This gives everyone the ability to make meaningful votes, instead of just whoever has the most money.

If spam does get to the front page, it would be easier for the system to rectify it, and the majority of voters could decide that this content is NOT worthy of payment. If they do, it is removed from trending, and payment is nullified before the 7 day window happens.