The way I understand it, is that it splits the value of your upvotes. So the more you upvote in a day, the lower your upvote "reward" goes to the content creator. It self adjusts everywhere you've been over the last 24 hours.

This is why, when a whale comes by, and jumps your post by, say, $300, and then 6 hours later, you come back and find you were only really jumped $125 now. That's because the whale voted a dozen times elsewhere the same day.

Right now, posts typically go 12 hours, but curator's voting power is averaged over 24 hours. So you have to factor that in..