How Much Do Whales Influences on Rewards? Introducing New Statistics
Summary
This post introduces two new statistics about influences on rewards with the consideration of the leverage of Steem Power (IPR) to provide more through understanding about the whale issue.
Introduction
The whale issue of Steem is one of the most frequently debated topic from its beginning. But we still do not have through understanding regarding the current situations, such as how much whales have influences on rewards, or how unequal the situation is. In this post, I would like to introduce two new statistics, 1) Influences on (author) rewards, 2) Influence to Steem Power Ratio (IPR), to provide more comprehensive knowledge about the whale issue.
Methods
The data is from Steem blockchain from 2016/8/16 (After v0.13.0) to 2016/9/8.
Influences of whales on rewards is calculated based on the following equations.
- Rshares of a post: sum(voters_rshares)
- Vshares of a post: (posts_rshares)^2
- Daily vshares: sum(posts_vshares)
- Voter's vshares on a post: posts_vshares * (voters_rshares / posts_rshares)
- Voter's daily vshares: sum(voters_vshares)
- Voter's influence: voters_daily_vshares / daily_vshares
To get IPR, we just need a simple equation.
- IPR = Influence / (voters_vests / total_vests)
Note: Steemit account's vests are excluded from total_vests
Results
| Rank | Account | Influence(%) | Steem Power (%) | IPR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | smooth | 13.34 | 2.86 | 4.67 |
| 2 | blocktrades | 11.60 | 3.71 | 3.13 |
| 3 | berniesanders | 10.55 | 2.97 | 3.55 |
| 4 | steemed | 3.92 | 1.62 | 2.42 |
| 5 | itsascam | 3.82 | 1.53 | 2.49 |
| 6 | tombstone | 3.62 | 1.87 | 1.93 |
| 7 | dantheman | 3.51 | 2.54 | 1.38 |
| 8 | summon | 3.11 | 1.29 | 2.41 |
| 9 | jamesc | 2.78 | 3.20 | 0.87 |
| 10 | complexring | 2.37 | 0.67 | 3.52 |
| 11 | smooth.witness | 2.32 | 0.53 | 4.37 |
| 12 | wang | 1.97 | 0.66 | 2.97 |
| 13 | nextgencrypto | 1.81 | 0.51 | 3.53 |
| 14 | rainman | 1.78 | 1.51 | 1.18 |
| 15 | recursive | 1.56 | 0.31 | 5.11 |
| 16 | silversteem | 1.55 | 0.46 | 3.39 |
| 17 | riverhead | 1.53 | 0.68 | 2.23 |
| 18 | pharesim | 1.53 | 0.88 | 1.74 |
| 19 | ned | 1.52 | 5.73 | 0.27 |
| 20 | steemit200 | 1.38 | 0.57 | 2.42 |
| 21 | steempty | 1.30 | 0.69 | 1.87 |
| 22 | kushed | 1.15 | 0.50 | 2.29 |
| 23 | xeldal | 1.15 | 0.64 | 1.79 |
| 24 | hr1 | 1.00 | 0.21 | 4.69 |
| 25 | satoshifund | 0.99 | 0.35 | 2.85 |
| 26 | enki | 0.91 | 0.53 | 1.71 |
| 27 | val-a | 0.91 | 2.80 | 0.32 |
| 28 | silver | 0.74 | 0.19 | 3.85 |
| 29 | au1nethyb1 | 0.72 | 0.42 | 1.71 |
| 30 | badassmother | 0.63 | 0.26 | 2.44 |
Surprisingly, top 10 have about 60% (actually over 60% since smooth and smooth.witness is controlled by same person) of author rewards, while they only have 22% of Steem Power. And the top 3 (smooth, blocktrades, berniesanders consist of 35.5% of influences, for instance, if daily author reward is $20,000, about $7,000 is from these three's voting activities. The average IPR of the top 10 is 2.63, but if we do the same calculation with rank 41~50, they only have IPR of 0.75. This means that influences on rewards is unequally distributed, more specifically it is biased to some whales.
Additionally, I calculated some basic statics about top rankers voting patterns.
- Range: Number of unique writers they voted for
- Mean: Average number of votes per writer
- Max: Maximum number of votes on a writer
- Stdev: Standard deviation of votes
| Rank | Account | Range | Mean | Max | Stdev |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | smooth | 340 | 2.32 | 65 | 7.49 |
| 2 | blocktrades | 480 | 1.31 | 22.4 | 1.51 |
| 3 | berniesanders | 785 | 1.27 | 14.5 | 1.7 |
| 4 | steemed | 80 | 3.64 | 44 | 6.43 |
| 5 | itsascam | 79 | 3.69 | 44 | 6.49 |
| 6 | tombstone | 196 | 1.64 | 12.1 | 2.18 |
| 7 | dantheman | 339 | 0.66 | 10.3 | 1.23 |
| 8 | summon | 220 | 1.65 | 14.4 | 1.99 |
| 9 | jamesc | 135 | 1.1 | 12.8 | 1.81 |
| 10 | complexring | 534 | 1.75 | 39 | 3.04 |
| 11 | smooth.witness | 324 | 2.4 | 65 | 7.61 |
| 12 | wang | 213 | 8.29 | 82 | 10.41 |
| 13 | nextgencrypto | 755 | 1.4 | 14 | 1.51 |
| 14 | rainman | 170 | 1.18 | 9.7 | 1.3 |
| 15 | recursive | 121 | 9.78 | 51 | 11.76 |
| 16 | silversteem | 760 | 1.82 | 15 | 2.08 |
| 17 | riverhead | 334 | 1.53 | 12.6 | 1.4 |
| 18 | pharesim | 404 | 2.03 | 54 | 3.89 |
| 19 | ned | 238 | 0.18 | 2.6 | 0.35 |
| 20 | steemit200 | 175 | 2.41 | 13 | 2.29 |
| 21 | steempty | 164 | 2.89 | 34 | 4.84 |
| 22 | kushed | 250 | 2.61 | 84 | 7.36 |
| 23 | xeldal | 204 | 2.92 | 48 | 5.65 |
| 24 | hr1 | 104 | 10.34 | 52 | 11.86 |
| 25 | satoshifund | 130 | 2.51 | 21 | 3.61 |
| 26 | enki | 174 | 3.22 | 46 | 5.58 |
| 27 | val-a | 75 | 0.36 | 1.5 | 0.42 |
| 28 | silver | 763 | 1.83 | 15 | 2.13 |
| 29 | au1nethyb1 | 205 | 1.97 | 11 | 1.79 |
| 30 | badassmother | 235 | 2.75 | 15 | 2.77 |
Among these statistics, max and stdev should be highlighted, since higher numbers imply that a whale's voting is very concentrated (possibily due to his/her preferences or favorable connection with authors?), and this can further create perception of inequality. (People recursively see high rewards on same author's posts). For comparison, while blocktrades and berniesanders have similar influences with smooth, they have much lower max and stdev, which implies that their votes are widely dispersed to many writers. But we can see very high max and stdev in hr1, recursive, wang, and smooth. In addition, we can find smooth and smooth.witness, and recursive and hr1 have the similar patterns respectively, probably because each pair of accounts is using the same voting bot.
Wrap-up
The results show that influence is much higher than whales' actual steem power, especially by active whale bots. In my humble opinion, the fundamental cause is the squared rshares, which makes large voting power much greater. We need further discussion about this issue and have to address it for better Steem society.
@clayop I'm frankly disappointed to see this kind of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric from you.
The reason my votes or others high on your list have the more relative influence (including relative to other whales with the same or higher SP, and therefore the same exact weighting given the mathematical formulas behind curation) is that we have chosen to invest our time and/or resources on actually curating. In my case I hired a team which reviewed posts on the site for many person-hours every single day, as well as spending a lot of my own time on it. Blocktrades I believe has his wife spending a lot of hours curating (I don't know if it works out to "full time" or what but it certainly seems like it could).
By contrast, other whales such as yourself, have chosen to spend relatively little to no time on curating, and thus have relatively little influence on content or rewards. This is not because you are being shut out by the system, it is because you chose not to participate. Given your SP relative to others on the list (such as @kushed or @steempty for example, who have approximately the same SP), you certainly could have had influence if you had made the investment.
SP does not give automatic influence or rewards. It gives the opportunity to exercise this influence by making an investment in curation. It is up to the SP holder whether or not to do so.
BTW, one clarification:
Your analysis is not correct here. The @smooth.witness account is entirely run by a bot which mirrors every single vote made by @smooth (including downvotes, low power votes, removal of votes, etc.). Any differences between the two are due to either malfunctions or very rare occasions when I have manually overridden this mirroring (for example because and author asked me to reduce voting on a post and the easiest way to do this was by removing only one of the votes).
This is done because I own both accounts despite them being separate on the blockchain and treat both as being my own for voting purposes (unlike other such as yourself, blocktrades, etc. who use their primary account for their witness). Both of these accounts are not run by the same voting bot, in any manner whatsoever.
I'm happy smooth is what we like to call awake!! I have not checked all your votes but I have seen you make some fantastic votes in terms of help other people learn some vital information for safety and healthy.
I agree your mirroring bot can cause the result.
However, in terms of curation, @blocktrades and you have obvious differences. Your votes is concentrated on few writers, more specifically, top 5%(17 people out of 340) consists of 65% of your vote (528 votes out of 816). For instance,
knozaki2015got 65,terrycraft53,crazymumzysa,gavvet,sirwinchestergot over 40. Meanwhile, @blocktrades 's top 5% (24 out of 480) has 20.6% only, which is three times lower than yours. Over 10 votes on the same author in the study period is 3, while @smooth has 19.P.S. you even did't vote for this stats while you always vote for
masteryodas daily payout. :)Can we conclude that the reason the trending page always has the same damn authors is because @smooth's votes are limited to fewer authors?
I think whales should take a lesson from @robinhoodwhale and not upvote the same author in a given time period.
I for one am tired of seeing the same set of authors on the trending page, each post earning almost exactly what their last post earned.
Actually, the authors smooth repeatedly voted are not on the trending page often. But they got significant amount of author rewards during the last month (between $200 and $400 generally)
Please see the following accounts: @knozaki2015 @terrycraft @crazymumzysa @gavvet @sirwinchester @masteryoda
I'm surprised by that to be honest. I wonder what is causing the same authors to appear on the trending page.
From my experience, berniesanders, phareism and block trades have been the most generous whales when it comes to regular upvoting of minnows posts.
Sure, people have different strategies for voting. @blocktrades also has way more votes called out for abuse (e.g. plagiarism, very questionable value content, etc.) than I do. I'm not even saying that is a bad thing, it is kind of a trade-off with voting on a lot of unknown stuff. (I do vote on unknowns too but they are scrutinized a lot more heavily with I'm reasonable sure more time put into vetting.)
Perhaps a valid point (though no I don't always vote for his reports).
There is a huge difference. His reports are usually presented in a neutral data-speaks-for-itself manner. Even when he editorializes he avoids divisiveness and criticism. As such, his posts generally attract positive and good-vibe comments that add value to the community and make people feel good about being here. That is how you retain and attract a user base.
Your post, while the statistical analysis is valid and I recognize the work, is presented in a manner that is divisive and feeds on (as well as feeds) jealousy and hostility, and greatly oversimplifies the reasons for differences in (what you call) influence between users, as I pointed out above. While I think your goals in wanting Steem to succeed are sincere and I share them, your approach is misguided and instead spreads a negative vibe, drives people away, and does not attract new users. I do not feel that adds value or helps to make Steem a better platform.
You're labeling critical interpretation as jealousy and hostility IMO. I think you maybe not comfortable since you are the on the top of the issue.
I get what you are saying @smooth. But my question is how would you view my investment being a dedicated human curator who votes daily for his 106 day straight? My account value is what a full time curator would earn botless. What we need is a solid base of human curators and bots in my opinion are taking these funds right out from under the human curators only to distribute them to authors they privy. We need your help to grow curators which in turn give more value to authors. Giving to authors is great but we need a solid base of voters to promote rewards that grow steadily. $100-$1000 articles are killing us. We need rewards like $1-50 so that the value of rewards can grow in time and be more distributed to more authors.
@furion I have another thoughts on your result. High profitability in curation probably means that a curator voted for popular posts, and then he/she can maximize the curation rewards. Meanwhile the low profitability can have two cases. 1) low profitability with wide range of votes (in my data, low max and stdev). 2) low profitability with small range of votes (high max and stdev). The first case implies that a curator is a hidden gem finder. He/she wants to find new and good authors. The second case implies that the curator is a sub-community supporter. The curator's vote is loyal to small group of people in his/her community. I think smooth is this case. But I am not sure what kind of community he is supporting now.
As you told, more dispersed voting does not necessarily mean better curation. However, concentrated voting is more likely to be a barrier against new users. For instance, @knozaki2015 has lots of over $300 posts for a month (probably after you started voting for him?), which is almost impossible to average users. IMHO, you can reduce your max by decreasing upvote percentage and still keep support writers.
The concentrated vote implies less effort finding hidden gems
@clayop voting for "more authors" does not necessarily mean doing the best job of curation, nor does it imply "more effort". I'm accusing no one of anything but one could easy create an army of sock puppets and vote for each of their posts, creating an appearance of "voting for many different authors", but it would all be fake and self-serving. Perhaps slightly less sinister but also useless, one could simply browse New and vote on any random crap posts, producing a small-but-consistent reward with minimal effort and in doing so also vote up a large number of different authors.
I'm happy that the authors I've consistently supported have produced content that gets votes from other community members, sparks engaged conversations in the comment sections, and is downvoted rarely. I've also voted on a good number hidden gems that then went on to get many other votes after I discovered them. Those are the primary metrics I use, along with my subjective view on what is adding value to the platform and generally helping it to thrive in various ways.
@clayop check out the report I've released yesterday on top curators by profitability. @smooth is not even on the list, because his curation profitability is ridiculously low (7% PA). On the opposite side of the spectrum we have for-profit whale bots, that generate 30%+ returns.
If smooth was selfish, or malicious, this probably wouldn't be the case. As far as I know, he is the only person that spends a lot of time and money on curation that is not based on ROI - rather I believe its his genuine intent to provide value to the platform and use his voting rights to support quality content.
I'm not uncomfortable with my results, I consider them an decent accomplishment (but I can always strive to do better).
I disagree with you making me, or anyone else, being at the top of the list into an "issue" at all. I've invested the most in terms of a combination of SP and effort and that is why I'm at the top. You've invested apparently little or no effort so you aren't on the list at all, despite people with less SP than you being there. That is exactly how it is supposed to work.
Yes first table is representing the drgree of utilization, and you have done a good job. But second table shows how you utilize. The concentrated vote implies less effort finding hidden gems, instead a voter strongly support only few people.
@furion First of all, this statistics is about author rewards, not curation rewards. Secondly, this statistics does not tell @smooth is selfish or malicious. The results present that smooth is the most influential person on author rewards and his votes are concentrated on small group of people.
About your results, probably bots can maximize their curation rewards by voting on high reward posts.
IMO that's an effect of the follow feature.
Everybody, keep on keepin' on - one day at a time to Steem greatness!!!
The botting world is so fascinating, wish i knew more!
Great posting. Many of us were feeling unfairness, while having no data to support the opinion. Now I can say whales Influence is way too large compared to their Steem Power.
Great analysis sir!
Very useful to see how the power is distributed. How did it get this way? First come first serve means your position is set for life? And that's all there is to it?
Funny you get 160 plus upvote ( at the moment i look ) and you will be paied less than a single 7 upvotes in some posts
Curious your thoughts on this:
Human vs. Bot Curators - Introducing Human Competition into the Equation - Allow Whales to Delegate Curation Power to Dolphins and Minnows
And this: Bot War: Keeping Peace with a Reverse Fractional Formula
The statistics are shocking. I think that the whales have too much power and too much influence. It's time the minnows are given more say
It would be interesting to trace changes after the next hardfork with vote balancing
Rebalanced target votes per day from 40 to 5. Votes will still regenerate over a 5 day period, so an account can vote 25 times sporadically before incurring large penalties to voting power, or 5 times daily.Currently, top influencing whales voted much more than 5 time a day (e.g. smooth did 33 times on average, and wang did 73 times!) The change will dramatically alleviate the concentration of influences.
Regular users do feel that most Whales are not doing much good in utilizing their serious voting power and now it can be seen in numbers as well thanks to your stats...
I have been doing some Whale Watching on my own lately, tracking the votes of something like 60 of the top Whales that actually curate posts and what I'm seeing is something like 4:1 of ratio of Whale votes going for popular and established authors compared to new users.
Are slidebar percentages calculated? I mean if a curator has given 50 votes x 10% to an author they prefer, it's like 5 votes (or less) x 100% voting power.
Yet the first case would seem "bad" because it would appear there are too many votes on the same people.
Yes it is considered.
Great information and it will be interesting to see who votes on this! :0