Posts Gaining/Loosing Value Without Aditional Upvotes/Flags? Find out why!

I got questions regarding this so many times that I decided to make it into a post so that I can use for future reference and I don't need to explain it all over again every time another user asks the same question.

Ever seen your posts losing or gaining value but you were sure that there were no new upvotes/flags on them? This one bothered me a lot when I first got on Steemit and it took me a while to figure out.

This is what I have found out.

Posts value isn't fixed and determined merely on upvotes/downvotes. It can and does change (correct) itself. How much it changes depends on many factors.

What goes into determining the $ value next to your posts

• USD price of STEEM ( higher price means bigger payouts as our upvotes are worth more when STEEM is worth more. Because our upvotes are proportional to the value of STEEM and their value moves as STEEM prices fluctuate)

• Reward pool balance ( created by inflation and used to pay authors, curators, witnesses and Steem Power holders who are protected from the inflation by getting additional SP for holding it)

• Rshares, a number calculated for each vote using a formula including Steem Power, voting weight and voting power of the voter

• Recent claims ( total amount of Rshares added to all posts)

Recent claims, reward pool balance and many other intresting facts can be found on Steemd.com on the right side of the page, in the sidebar.

All of the above mentioned factors can fluctuate and will change your post payouts

• Obviously price of STEEM can go up or down. To reduce overloading the system with constant calculations and adjustments a median (average price of STEEM in USD in the last 3.5 days) is taken into consideration when calculating the post payout.

Median can be checked on Steemnow.com by clicking on the $ value of STEEM in the top right corner of the page

• When STEEM price goes up, our upvotes are worth more, proportional to the increase and same applies for when price decreases.

Violent price swings will greatly alter the value of your posts pending payouts!

• Reward pool balance fluctuates based on recent claims and the amount created each day. Obviously, if more claims are redeemed in a day than the amount of new STEEM created, the reward pool will decrease, decreasing our rewards.

Reward pool is calculated by a formula:

new_steem = ( ( virtual_supply * current_inflation_rate ) / ( 10000 * BLOCKS_PER_YEAR ) ) * CONTENT_REWARD_PERCENT

virtual_supply is the supply of all STEEM + all SBD (if all SBD would be converted to STEEM at the current price)

BLOCKS_PER_YEAR: A fixed value of 10,512,000, a new block is created every 3 seconds which makes for a total of 10,512,000 new blocks each year

CONTENT_REWARD_PERCENT: 75% goes to authors and curators. 15% goes to witnesses and 10% goes to SP holders

• Rshares also fluctuate based on STEEM's price movements

• Recent claims can also fluctuate greatly and is dependant on all above-mentioned factors + the total number of posts/comments/upvotes

Conclusion

Post payout value is nothing but a rough estimate of what it's currently worth, it's not fixed and can fluctuate based on all above-mentioned factors.

USD price of STEEM is what alters the post payouts the most as it affects all mentioned factors. Logically when the price of STEEM goes up, so do your posts because the votes that were cast by users before are now worth more and vice-versa.

Hope this helps and clears up all the question marks above your head considering post payouts and why the values might increase or decrease seemingly without a reason.