I just wanted to reiterate most of the details from yesterday, I think it's worth repeating, if you checked in yesterday it's about the same today.

Currently we have one baseline delegation of 50 000 SP that we need to renew every month. It is mostly covered from post rewards, but not totally, so this is where the paying members come in, we need just a little bit extra to cover this, but not too much. These payments also only cover our baseline and don't add to the pot the same way delegations do. So that's also why it's important to limit these payments. The bigger problem is that payments are static, so when steem prices fluctuate wildly, or we need to make some adjustments to voting power than these members are at a disadvantage.

Once we are fully on delegations everything is balanced, new delegations will add to the pot and vote values will remain pretty steady, except for baring for steem prices and it also ensures a more fair distribution across the board.

When I've suggested moving to a phased plan to move towards delegations only, it's because we do still need a bit of liquid steem, but not as much, probably about half as much as last month.

So my plan for the phased approach was for the first 1-2/months to limit paying members to a max of 400 STEEM worth on a first come/first serve basis, but I also wanted to make sure payments could only be made in addition to a delegation, starting with an at least 25% delegation for the first month, then to 50% and etc. each subsequent month.

This means if you want a gold membership you can no longer just pay 100 STEEM to obtain it, you would have to also send a delegation of at least 625SP and top up your tier with an additional 75 STEEM.

I think by doing it this way we will ensure we don't dilute the votes too much with paying membership and will make this more sustainable over the long term.

The other change I am considering for next month is also creating a platinum tier and raising the delegation limit to 5000SP, I have had a few people approach me about this option and it will certainly add more voting power to the pool for everyone so I don't really see a reason why not.

We are still a week away from opening intakes and subscriptions for next month and I will also be committing to giving all our current members the first opportunities for our paid spots, before we open to new paid intakes. Otherwise anyone on steemit making quality content may subscribe to our service with delegated SP.

Voting

Our VP is staying pretty stable actually and sitting around 87% at this moment, so I'm glad to see it not declining too fast. As for declining, I'm also very happy to announce that steem value doesn't seam to be declining, we are still sitting at $3.10, although poor 'ol SDB is following everything else on the landslide down.

Second Chance Post

I'm loving this post here from @soyrosa, I love seeing nature overtake old buildings and structures like this, I'll have to keep watching this more closely and maybe add a few of my own photos from my own yard. Although it's certainly not this spectacular.

Remember, we will reopen delegations and enrollment on May 27th for next month