DANGER! You Could Lose SBD by Using Bots
I'm not one to shy away from poking the bear. I once made a post on a message board for mom's where I heavily criticised the bad parenting advice being given and threw in some admonition for the anti-vaxers while I was there.
I'm not trying to poke the bear today, but I half expect there to be consequences.
I was looking at the returns that people were getting from using various upvote bots this week and was surprised to see how regularly people lose money on them.
I've used bid bots twice and received a good return on them, but I've avoided a couple of bots when I saw that they were oversubscribed with bidders. I've since learned that the use of bots is somewhat controversial, but I'm not going to go into that here (I recommend taking a look at this post by @stellabelle). I just want to give fair warning to fellow minnows who may not realise what they're getting into.
My Observations
I took these screenshots from the Steem Upvote Bot Tracker yesterday. All of the amounts shown are in USD rather than SBD.
The two above show a profit before the deductions for curation, but this next one looks rather painful - a loss of almost $450 before curation!
A return of -47.71% isn't even the worst that I've seen. There were two occasions on which I saw a very popular bot return -79%.
While writing this post, I had a look at the bot tracker and saw a bot that was 5 minutes away from making a payout that was on course to exceed 150%. With two minutes remaining, that dropped to 53%. In the end, bidders got -0.95% as there were a couple of late additions in the dying seconds.
Another small bot had only 5 bids with two minutes remaining, and a projected return of 74.24%. With one minute remaining, an extra bid was added, bringing the final return down to 47.26%.
Safety First
As you can see, you need to have your wits about you. Even if you watch the bots carefully, it's possible that several people could make transfers in the last few seconds and bring the returns down to negative territory.
Do you feel like gambling? I don't.
Hi @penston! You have received 0.1 SBD tip + 0.02 SBD @tipU
from @tattoodjay :)
Check out new tipuvote! feature :)
I personally dont use Bots Much myself as I just am not that keen on them, but I have also seen others say that at the last minute sometimes people bid high and end up turning their ROI negative
I would have no issue if the bid bots were all to fade away
Tip!
I've been doing some more experiments to see where scams may exist. One of the things I've noticed is that, even if you make a small profit on a bot, those gains can turn negative if the price of the crypto drops or the rewards pool is being plundered. It's another gamble on top of a gamble!
This is exactly what I’ve seen in the last 2 days @penston.
We need to warn people.
Ive told quite a few ppl since it happened, but you’re right the new ppl need to know. So many joining, even since I started almost 5 weeks ago.
Very true, and I just dont like the idea of them so I do not use them
Honestly, I have not been using bots so much, or at all lately, but it is my concern for so many people creating bots. I think it takes away from true engagement of the platform.
I am not against using bots but to some extent. Now it seems every day new bots keep popping out and like you observed some of them not so profitable for the users.
Great post, my friend, happy holidays. :)
TheSteemEngine. :)
Helping minnows who've created good, original content is worthwhile and I'd be happy enough to see them get their SP up. Especially if they're really engaging with the community! Things like @thesteemengine are great because they encourage and reward engagement.
I still haven't used any bots. I'm not sure I ever will. Seems too much like rolling dice...
Dice, blackjack, Irish weather... (Wales must be similar, right?)
Holy Crap! So, us Minnows read articles posted by others stating to get into the BOTS and now this? It can all be so confusing. One thing I notices was after leasing/delegation on blocktrades over the weekend my SP was 1200 and went down to 155 in one day. Further, I was encouraged to NOT upvote for 24 hours and wait to activate the BOTS. I did that and the value of my account went down. So, I guess this could be several factors. I have noticed my curation increase A LOT but nothing is showing in my account to reflect any increase. My head hurts. Thank you for this article, but now I'm really confused. Your fellow SteemitBlogger Minnow. :(
I've done some more research on this and posted two more articles about it: Have you been scammed or ripped off on Steemit? and another one called Watch Out! Massive Losses Seen on Upvote Bots. I've seen people lost more than 95% of the money that they bid on bots.
If I make more posts about this, I'll include them in the #scamwatch tag.
After reading your first and second article, yes I’ve been. I haven’t noticed the negative but I noticed I either didn’t receive anything or received .001 which didn’t make sense since I gave more and I was told I’d receive more than what I gave. I’ve sent the incorrect amount and altogether not gotten it back from echowhale due to the “no return policy.”
Sadly, a lot of people do like gambling.
I'm with you...if I'm paying, I want to know exactly and for how much!
I have tested a couple of the bid bots...but have stuck to minnowbooster the few times that I wanted to Promote one of my posts.
I've suggested a solution to the bot admins, but they've rejected it so far on the grounds that they wouldn't profit as much.
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Interesting... thanks for the info!!
Have you used bots before?