What are our whales doing? Losing faith in Steem?
What are our whales doing? Losing faith in Steem?
Hello Fellow Steemians,
I am normally not interested in the value of steem and the economical development of the platform.
I am here to connect with likeminded people and to blog about art and music.
But I just couldn't help but notice that in the last couple of months the participation of the whales on the platform was getting less and less.
So I went on a quest to actually see what they are doing or what they are not doing.
What I love about Steemit is, nothing is secret, I can look into the history of every user without having to be able to read the blockchain.
(I am no tech, so everything that is computer-speak goes right over the top of my head)
So I went to Steemwhales.com to check out the top 25 whales ranked by account value
Now began the tedious task of snooping through their accounts trying to figure out what they are up to. Cross referencing with Steemd.com and so on.
Here's what I found:
I have to say I'm interpreting what I saw, I'm just wondering what's going on and why so little of the whales are actually active accounts that curate and reward good content, that's the whole idea behind Steemit isn't it?
The first seven whale accounts are either owned by Steemit Inc or coin exchanges and do not curate, who knows what they spend their Steem on. Allegedly Steem Inc uses their coins to promote Steemit to the masses, not very successful I must say.
Let's go further down the list then.
@dan transferred in the last 14 days 72 x 5000 =360,000 steem to blocktrades and did not return them back into the system he also sent 100,000 steem as a gift at least twice in the last month to an account called @jwest40 which then did the same and sent the money in 2000 steem portions to blocktrades and out of the system.
Okay, there is nothing unethical about that, I just note that there is a constant draining of steem that leave the system to be probably converted into other coins and tokens that bring in more revenue. Will they ever be invested back into the platform?
I doubt it!
@mottler another whale account with over 2M steem power that is practically inactive with no curation activities but at least I found no sign that the account is slowly drained.
@ben another whale with about 5M account value, no curation but has transferred 860000 steem to @imadev nine months ago that then transfers it out of the system via poloniex and bittrex bit by bit.
Again no problem if someone wants to cash in.
@databass an account with 1.7M Steem power, no curation whatsoever, received 1.2M steem power from @steemit last year. No further activity detectable.
@hendrikdegrote yay! Finally a real person with about 1.6M steem power plus 350,000 delegated who actually curates! Kudos!
@jamesc another real person with 1.5M steem power plus 1.1M delegated that curates!
@michael-b inactive account with 1.5M steem power
@val-b account with 1.5M steem power no curation started to power down 1.6M seven months ago stopped after one month
@proskynneo last curation happened nine months ago, 1.5M steem power but at least there are 100,000 delegated
@minority-report 1.3M steem power plus 900,000 delegated, curating off and on.
But even if you're not very active you can delegate your power, see it's easy!
Started to power down 390,000 steem thirteen days ago
@ranchorelaxo with 1.3M steem power seems to have heavily invested in the platform some 10 months ago and is curating
@thejohalfiles an account with 1.2M steem power that is actively curating
@imadev I talked about the connection to @ben above. 2.2M account value no curation
@xeldal active and curating close to 1M in steem power and 800,000 delegated
That's how you do it!
@roadscape active and curating almost 1M steem power and almost 600,000 delegated
@dantheman last curation five months ago estimated account value over 2M
9 months ago started power down of 2.5M steem and transferred 1.5M steem in the following four months to blocktrades, obviously invested somewhere else (maybe EOS?)
I could go down the list and find more worrying facts
#26 @arhag 1.9M estimated account value started to power down 438,000 steem two hours ago was last active five months ago
I believe more whales are starting to lose interest (faith?) in the platform and gonna cash out to make better money in the crypto bull market.
Please prove me wrong in your comments!
Until next time
Lots of Love
Just when the platform was gaining, Steem. But from the looks of it, they're probably just cashing out and obviously over-inflated coin. It's really hard to imagine this kind of pressure not exploding.
I'm new, only 14 days in and I've made some disturbing observations. Besides the fact that all the Steem is in the hands of the whales, good content gets lost in the fold here and never see the bright of the day.
People come in voting to cash in on what a Whale probably upvoted hoping to get some scraps. They don't care about the quality of the content! I observed some voters waiting 20-30 minutes to upvote and comment on a post of about picture of somebody's lunch that was obviously pumped by a whale. Comments come in like "Great landscape!" obviously oblivious of the fact that the photo was of a sandwich.
The platform seems to show Great promise and I really see the potential. But, in order for it to succeed it has to be driven by content and so far, sub-par content is just a vote away from burrying good content on Steemit.
As I said, I'm interpreting the things I see, I might be wrong because I don't know about the connections between the accounts and such, I'm just worried but I agree the amount of spam and undeserved upvotes are beginning to put a lot of content makers off.
I just checked out dantheman's profile. Everything it has is on Steem! It's curious why none of his assets are in Steem Power. You certainly can't bail at the sign of trouble with SP because it takes 2 years to even get your investment back.
The disturbing truth.. Wish people would just believe a bit more in this community rather than cash out or do it for the monetary value alone.. Just look at all that stat above. Most whales dont even curate, they either sell their votes to boosters or they go on pumping and dumping the coin when they please... I don't like that sign of this.
I completely agree with both adonis and you. The amount of good content needs to be improved. Curation and delegation SP to whales is ruining the actual content creators of this platform. I am hesitant to power up due to this factor. In order to make money, you have to spend money first, which is such a backward motto for this system. Good content and comments needs to have organic votes and automatic bots and upvotes just for the cash need to be regulated. Maybe we can have a system where if enough people report a certain comment, the account is temporarily frozen or have some sort of incentive for the people trying to better the system/ penalty for the random comments. Maybe even moderators that are paid with rewards that keep track of the community. Having incentive to post quality content is great, but I think because SBD are so high price now, people just want to make a quick buck and the community deteriorates.
The easily found content is obviously in the "Trending" and "Hot" section. Both are blatantly driven by upvotes and the amount of SBD it has gathered. A normal content creator who otherwise has good content can never get that high without whale votes. There has to be a real Curator Person that picks content to be placed in those sections.
Wow @geenaizzy, very detailed and well done #homework on the research of the whales here at steemit. #kudos to you!!!
Will def be #resteeming and #following for your future content. I still dont even understand the powering down and how someone can sell votes or your votes worth more. Maybe you can break down something or point me in the rite direction.
Thank you for your comment, I would recommend you go through the FAQ in the help section on this platform as it holds the most current regulations. A lot of posts also deal with these questions but often enough the people spread the wrong or outdated facts.