Powering Up, Delegations, Tokenomics and Hive Strategies For Newcomers
I have been on Hive blogging my brains out for just over two weeks now. I have made what I hope is a serious and meaningful contribution to the content produced on this platform.
Hive has been a very unique experience so far. We all know that Hive is no ordinary social media platform, as money is involved.
During this time I have bumped into some outstandingly lovely and inspiring people including @sircork, @stickupboys and @harbiter, unfortunately I have also come into contact with a few idiots as well as some shady characters. I'm pleased to say though that for the most part the people I have met all seem like good peeps.
Why Are We All Here?
As I travel through the streets of Hive and try and build my own path in this community I am often questioning why are people here? For me first and foremost I am here for the self-expression. I may be expressing myself to a small audience but it does not detract from the therapeutic nature of self-expression, or the fact that Hive is growing.
I am also here to meet new people and discover new things that I would otherwise not benefit from if I used other social media platforms.
The Money Shot
Then there is the money. This of course has a big pull factor, there can be no doubt about that. After all there is money to be made. But this also, at least for me, creates a conflict, but not necessarily a conflict of interests.
If people simply want to come here just for the money they think they'll make from blogging then fine, if they are able to do that let them. Although I think the 'blog to earn concept' might be stretching things now given that I believe around 30% of Hivians would like to see the blogging side of things gone altogether.
If others wish to come here to build working relationships and get involved with projects and make money that way then fine. And if others simply want to join Hive for the self-expression and the social side of things then again it's all good. The point is there are various pathways people can take when they become a member of the Hive community. I think that's what makes Hive an even more interesting place actually, this versatility gives it more potential.
The Conflict Within
For me the conflict I was referring to stems around the money. As I have just mentioned I predominantly want to express things and provoke discussion. Hive is a useful tool for that kind of purpose as it is completely uncensored, which makes it a very special place on the internet. I also want to meet people from different countries and power up my knowledge banks. But I also want to make money. I think most people probably do.
So for me where are the lines between focusing on producing good content, provoking debate, meeting new people and focusing on money? If I'm brutally honest for a moment - I'm still trying to figure it out.
Where Do I Fit In?
Hive is a crazy platform. It's awesome. I'm not sure where I fit into it all. Perhaps it doesn't matter for now, perhaps it does. In terms of my blogging output I am posting about a wide variety of things, and that feels right for me at the moment. Perhaps at some stage I will hone in on one particular niche, perhaps I won't. Who knows?
Delegations, Tokens and Some Tokenomics
(Picture source: Unsplash.com)
In terms of rewards I would say I'm having mixed results. Additionally I have now bought into some of the various Hive tokens floating around that are tradeable on the Hive sidechain Hive-Engine. I now own 1000 Legion tokens. This cost me $150. It gives me a daily Hive drip of 0.125 Hive into my Hive wallet and a daily vote of around $0.26 from the @legionsupport account, although I note I am also receiving additional support from the @stickupcurator account sometimes in the form of a vote of around $0.40, I think this is as a result of my Legion holdings.
So when do I make my $150 back? Well as you can see I have already started making it back by way of vote support and Hive drips. But with these tokens I am free to sell them at anytime, providing there is sufficient market liquidity and I sell for at least the same price, I am in profit from day one of purchasing the tokens it seems.
I have also bought and powered up 500 Hive. I have delegated this to the Pimp project, which provides me with a daily vote of $0.09 from the @tokenpimp account.
If I had chosen not to delegate my HP and used it for voting purposes I would have been in a position to vote on posts at $0.01 a vote. If the vote power remains at 80% or more I can have 10 votes at $0.01 before my vote value is reduced to zero.
So breaking this down further in any 24 hour period I could have given out $0.10 worth of votes but my curation rewards would have been obviously half of that at $0.05. But with my delegation I make fractionally less at $0.09 a day, making $0.4.5 a day after curation. For now this works for me, because I do not need to vote on 10 posts a day to make my $0.05, which might be quite time consuming for such a small amount of money. But is that the right attitude? I'm not sure. Perhaps not, but as I say it works for me at the moment.
That is not to say I am not out there in the community engaging, far from it I am voting and commenting on all sorts of posts, and getting to know lots of people. It's just that I am prepared to take a hit of $0.005 a day if it removes the requirement to ensure I vote on at least 10 posts a day. If I felt I had to do this just to make money I might just find myself voting on content purely for the money, which wouldn't be the right approach.
However, what is clear is that you make more money if you hold on to your own HP and do not delegate.
Furthermore, both the Legion and Pimp investments mean that I do not have to face the humiliation of my hard work sat there each day at $0.07. It's pure vanity I know but it makes me feel better that I have some support I can rely on.
You'll note I have used the word relied and not guaranteed. I am informed by the token owners that they are constantly checking post content to make sure people are not just simply shit posting all the time. So you'll get the vote automatically but if it transpires you are posting worthless crap you will have the vote removed.
Building Stake and Powering Up
(Picture source: Unsplash.com)
Regarding the powering up of Hive and what to do with stake I think I might have devised a mutually just and common sense strategy that benefits both me and the community. I have already powered up 500 Hive and delegated that in return for post support. With the next 500 Hive I earn through blogging coupled with buying a little bit more from the market to get me to the next 500 Hive threshold, I will retain that as powered up Hive that isn't delegated, and therefore start building up my vote power. It's important that I also have some votes to give out and support others.
There are other types of initiatives going on around the platform, another popular one is Hive Basic Income involving a share scheme where you send Hive to a designated account and include the name of a beneficiary and both you and the beneficiary receive vote support from the Hive Basic Income account. I understand the amount of the vote is determined by how many shares you hold.
In terms of making connections on this vibrant platform I think I'm making progress. Just as with any community or society you want to make sure your social circle is filled with people you want to be around. Hive is no different.
The Official Hive Hierarchy
There is obviously a hierarchy on Hive, it's built into the system itself. The concept of the witness governance structure, or Delegated Proof of Stake, is an intriguing one. In theory it makes sense, those stakeholders with the most amount of stake who've invested the most, and therefore the ones who stand to lose the most if things go awry, get to make the key decisions about the direction of the Hive blockchain.
The Other Hierarchy
But what of the other hierarchies in and around the platform? Lots of tribes have sprung up, many of them have whales working with them, supporting them. It is in these sub-communities where you have to really careful and work out what's going on, as it may not always be so obvious at first glance.
In these sub-communities you will have to integrate into an already established community, which means learning more customs and conventions. This can be rewarding of course, meeting new people who may share like minded interests as yourself, perhaps have the same goals as yourself. Once again if money is involved, as it invariably is on Hive, make sure what's on offer is sound and the community or project is not just trying to take your money. Use your instincts!
So for now folks this is all I have to offer any newcomer to Hive. I fully acknowledge my learning curve is a work in progress. But from the short time I have been hanging around and blogging away in this community I have picked up a few nuggets along the way, and I hope by sharing them with this post it might evolve the Hive debate in some way and help any additional newcomers who might just stumble upon this post.
Keep Hiving away!
Peace!
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lol good luck navigating hive, we dont vote LGN holders by the way, it is not our project. We just use LGN to give to people who delegate to us
So the @legionsupport vote is down to $0.22 and the @stickupcurator vote is down by 80% to just $0.04, how come?
stickupcurator is manually curated for music and arts stuff and nothing to do with holding tokens. I am not sure about lgn vote but vote value is linked to hive price!
Vote value also linked to VP right? What VP percentage does @legionsupport vote at? In relation to the the @stickupcurator vote I am aware that it is not to do with my Legion holding after your clarification, but how come the vote is down 80%?
yes also linked to VP i think and how much HP you have. I am not running Stick Up Curator at mo I just try and support new Hive users
Do you not do any curation? Who runs the @stickupcurator generally? Can I try getting an answers to the 80% vote decrease?
yes the answer is simple....its not a guaranteed vote and is based on music and arts content
And who does the voting?
Depends who is running it...
if you do music and arts content feel free to tag it though we don't mind
Feel free to tag what?
our curator account if you doing music or arts posts
I probably won't because the last, and in fact the only, time I have tagged the curator account it has cost me quite a lot in support.
lol ok
What was it you didn't like about that post?
What post bro?
The post we are having this conversation on. Something in it has irritated someone hence the vote decrease. As well as the @stickupcurator vote being removed.
oh well seems like an interesting post to me
Lol! You must know who's done it and why?!
done what?
Removed the vote. And why I appear to have irritated someone.
Who then? I think there's only Ray left, right?
Lol Ray is not a SUB and there are ten of us....
So it must be one of the nine. We're making progress.
I would say that asking people who and why they vote on things, especially your own stuff is generally not a great idea!
No I'm not asking that. I'm asking why they removed the vote, what a waste for the curator too.
Probably caused you annoyed them bro
Yes, I said that earlier, it appears the post has irritated someone. But why?
I am not sure tbh lol People vote where they wanna vote...
And they remove votes for no reason? Of course not, there must be a reason.
I guess so, but I would not loose sleep over it
Another banger from the new kid on the block, you've really found a place that suits you here. I barely know you, but your stuff suits the place and thus I have to draw the conclusion I asserted, that the place likewise suits you.
But a couple of things I'd like to respond to in this post.
First of all, thank you for the compliment! I am always glad to share my intrigue and excitement about this place with newcomers who are also excited by and intrigued by this place. So I am flattered by you noticing and honored to be one of the folks welcoming you here.
Now about your post.
Regarding witnesses. I think you may get it, but it read a bit off so to make sure, the top 20 witnesses and in fact, all of us witnesses are voted by HP holders into our positions on the chart. The top 20 are supported by the most HP held in the hands of their voters who elected them, but they themselves, may or may not be "top stake holders" per se.
They tend to end up that way pretty quickly in the top 20 slots because the compensation for validating blocks at that level is substantial on the monthly producer rewards for doing the job, but they are not personally holding all the stake that creates their ranking, that is the cumulative HP staked by their supporting voters. You can be a voter as an HP stake holder as can anyone who stakes even just 0.001 hive into HP.
And yes, minnows make a difference here. Granted, alone, a tiny stake doesn't add much to a witness vote, but look at the vote counts on the witnesses. The top ones have 4 digits worth of voters, many of those minnows.
NOW we enter a "race" where two witnesses in close gross voter stake total positions next to each other may in fact shift BECAUSE of a minor voter choosing one or the other, 100 HP could shift one witness over another if the numbers are close. And a school of minnows landing their votes can make an even bigger gap happen.
It's really as simple at ten 100mv voters is the same as only one 1000mv voter, so ten little dudes plus one more tiny one added there would beat the single bigger dude in cumulative "vote weight" total.
Every voice counts, some more than others, but bigger total voices is the only metric that matters. Mentioning "mv" - don't let that stress you , mv is short for megavests, just think of it as HP for now, the math is an advanced class to some degree and not relevant to the point here directly, its just a more algorithmically and programmatically useful mathematical thing than HP / staked hive power.
There are posts about it you can find to get into the weeds of the vests,megavests, hp, staking details around the blogs from over the years, this doesn't change much or often, so pretty much any post, regardless of its age will get you the general gist of it.
The point was, yeah, so the top 20 are indeed directly aligned to the "top stakeholders making the decisions", BUT also rather, its the top 20 who are chosen by the most cumulative stake voted into them as a witness selection. It could be true that the #1 witness, has one million 1mv voters, and the second one has 2 fifty-million mv voters. Same total mv, but one represents 1 million unique users choices and the other represents only 2 people's choice, but those two are rich rich like that and so can elevate a witness to the same height as a million little guys supporting a crowd favorite. It's a bit whacky but it more or less works.
This system has its pros and cons but in summary, your post as I read it somewhat cites the top 20 as being the top 20 direct holders calling the shots. It's just not quite that simple as noted herein. They may not represent the top dogs at all, though because more top dogs vote than little dogs, they usually pick who they want to be top 20 with sheer mass and inertia. It could be overcome by the "masses" is all I am saying, it isn't usually, but it could be!
There IS indeed a hierarchy but it often has more to do with personal stake, personal rep numbers which are really just a glorified activity counter over time, and more or less a guide to if "people like them or hate them with up or down voting over time) and personality and contributions to the ecosystem or even just to those sub-sects you mentioned.
It's a myriad of things, but somehow ends up in something of an established pecking order among the more visible, high profile users here. It's also meaningless, because there is enough mass here that as soon as you think you are somebody here, you will find out there there is an entire population of thousands tucked in some corner of hive speaking a foreign language you don't know, that never ever heard of you at all.
So in some ways, it's fallacy to think much about "hierarchy" vertically and rather think about more lateral "positioning" - do you want to be known as a solid witness? Be one, do "witness things" well, make enough staked weight happy to vote for you to climb that ladder. Rather be a well liked fiction author, curated by the heavy hitters to earn your living or build your savings and stake via writing? Be one! Rather be a community builder or participant who isn't much of a writer but is good at spreading communal enthusiasm in the groups you hang out in? Do that! Want to share art or photos or your latest knitting creation? Do that!
You get the idea. Be your OWN thing, and try to be really good at it and that will lead us to my last point.
Don't worry about the money! Like, other than knowing how not to accidentally lose it all, and what it means to stake, save, transfer, trade, blah blah, the mechanics of it, don't focus on if you should "balance" your craft vs your business here. Generally speaking here, of course. Just do your craft. Be good at it. If you do, and you also learn and observe some of the local customs with examples of that being the typical stuff you see people discussing here like plagiarizing is bad, self voting is questionable, supporting scammers or being one is bad, basic stuff like that, then really, its just the same as anywhere else....
Make a good product, people will support it if its something they like, and you might get lucky and impress somebody wealthy who slams down a $2 upvote on you. But you might not, and that should not dissuade you from doing things you personally love and throwing them at the wall to see if they stick.
I like running witness nodes, I like making software, obviously I like talking about Hive, teaching about how it works and hanging out with friendly folks making jokes in the communities. Sometimes I post my project news, sometimes I post creative work when the mood strikes and inspiration hits. Sometimes I get attention, sometimes I don't.
Look at the money more like a bonus, than a core goal. For the most part, that's how successful people here fare the best.
But keep experimenting with the toys and gadgets and the money side too, if that interests you, as it seems to. I'm thrilled to see you found PIMP for example, as that is literally the creation of my witness partner on the @PolleNation witness, @Enginewitty and while it's not a pollenation thing, its very much a Witty's thing thing, its still coming from one of my most trusted peers here so its cool you found it and liked it all the same!
BTW, I am not a financial guy so I just turn nearly every sidechain token I get back into Hive asap but not PIMP, being that I trusty Witty to do make it do good things, I stake all of that I get as tips on my various posts from PIMP users and its the only side chain token I keep. I definitely advise learning more about sidechain tokenomics if financial stuff is one of your interests. It's not so much one of mine. I like that blogging pays, so to speak, but its not the main reason I blog and after 7+ years around here, my wallet reflects my apathetic nature about money. I am going to have to get much more serious about it to make sure my project can pay for itself or produce income to pay for itself and that's another reason I am partnered with EngineWitty, he is very good at finance, tokenomics, etc and I am very good at making software and together we are very good at being social and community builders/drivers/participants. It's a good and useful duo that serves us well together.
End of the day, I really wanted to follow up and clarify about the witness stake vs "holding the power" and to talk about "never mind the money, do what you love, the money will probably come if you're good at it" part most of all.
You're doing fine, better than fine as a brand new user, and I encourage you to keep going, learning, doing, experimenting and getting settled in to your groove here. Like I said, I believe it suits you and you suit it, with "it" being the whole hive vibe, the place, the platform, the ecosystem, the whole inexplicable thing that it just is.
Rock on!
New kid on the block - now I'm going to have to change my Discord name again.
Regarding your comment look I know you don't do things by halves matey but this is getting silly now! Seriously thanks for what is a very comprehensive comment.
Yes, you were absolutely right to point out that very important fact regarding the link between stake ownership and witness positions. It is a very important clarification of my understanding of the governance structure on Hive, so thank you for doing that.
It is of course encouraging to see that the 'small' people, the masses, could rise up with their small holdings, influence the power game and change the direction of the platform. I am very pleased to see that type of system has been built into the governance structure. Even if it does mean that in practice it is unlikely, it still remains a possibility.
I will absolutely keep experimenting with the toys and gadgets, I seem to find more and more each day. But this is what I particularly like about the platform - the innovation that's happening all around the community.
In terms of my own relationship with Hive I will keep doing what I do and see where it all ends up.
Congratulations @peaceandmoney!
You raised your level and are now a Minnow!
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