WLS -vs- Steem

Like many people, I jumped on board the 'Whaleshares' project when it was stiil just that, a "project" here on the Steem blockchain and Discord. I attended their curation shows regularly and earned some tokens (Whaleshares, Hairshares, etc.) which accumulated in my Bitshares wallet. Then, of course, Whaleshares launched their own fork off the Steem blockchain late last summer and are now operating on their own chain. I have continued to attend the shows there in addition to remaining loyal to the Steem blockchain and cross-posting many of my posts to both chains as much of the audience is different — many Steemians are not on Whaleshares and vice-versa, plus there are different sets of following/followed on the two chains among folks who are on both chains.

I keep hearing folks on Whaleshares claiming to be earning "vastly more" [their words, not mine] there than on Steem, and have not found that to be true in my case. So, I have been poking some numbers, and will likely be keeping track for a while until I see how this plays-out. Here is what I have learned thus far.

I joined the Steem blockchain on 25-Sep-2017, which was about 20.5 months ago. If I did not have to wait for a PowerDown and could walk away with my earnings immediately, the Steemit.com front-end estimates my account value at $487.04 (at the current price of Steem) which equates to $23.76 per month. NOTE: The above does not account for the fact that I bought a little Steem, twice, but I'd have to really dig through back-records to recall how much and when, so that small amount of purchased-Steem is included here and not segregated as it really should be for this comparison. That also does not take into account that I have given-away some Steem and SBD for charitable reasons, for contests, and so forth.

I became active with the Whaleshares (WLS) project on 18-Feb-2018, so that was about 15 months ago, roughly, when I began accumulating tokens from them. If I were to be able to grab my earnings today from the WLS blockchain and the exchangeable-for-fiat tokens I've accumulated on the Bitshares Exchange (BTS) due to WLS activity, my account value is about $197.24 which equates to $13.15 per month.

Another interesting thing to note is this: By the time I became active with WLS, I had been on the Steem blockchain for about five months and was almost a "Minnow" with 500 SP vested in the platform. At today's price of USD $0.32/Steem, that comes to $160. So, in that first five months on Steem, I eared 81% of my entire current holdings on WLS, which took 15 months to accrue.

So, that is considerably less earnings on WLS than on Steem, at least for me. When one looks at it, however, that I have expanded my audience and have more assets for doing so, it is a fabulous thing and those extra earnings are nothing to dismiss, and I am grateful for those extra earnings! Definitely! But the earnings are not "vastly more" by any stretch of the imagination. Others' experience may vary, of course, and I am not denying that some are doing vastly better on Whaleshares than Steem.

On a post-by-post basis, here are how my last four posts fared on both blockchains. The last two columns show estimated rewards measured in USD.

POST TITLE:	STEEM:	WHALESHARES:
Barbeque and Amethysts	$2.50	$10.03
Granddaddy Graybeard Tree	$1.54	$2.13
Staple Food: Breakfast	$1.23	$1.12
BVC - Boyer Visions Challenge № 3	$1.08	$1.05

My most recent post — Barbeque and Amethysts — has been much better received on Whaleshares than on Steem, which is peculiar since the post relates to a real-life meetup with someone from the Steem blockchain. That post has yet to pay-out on either chain, so the earnings could increase. The next-to-last post fared a little better on WLS, but the two before that fared worse. That last post was actually a photo challenge on the Whaleshares blockchain, so I would have expected it to earn far better there than on Steem, but I was wrong!  ¯\(ツ)/¯

I only compared four posts because that's as far back as WLS is currently showing earnings on individual posts. On older posts, earnings are no longer showing as they once were. I hope they fix it soon.

Stay tuned, and perhaps I can post an update after collecting some additional data.

Of course, more important than financial gain is the friendships forged with people on both blockchains! There are some really good folk in both places which is wonderful! 💖