YOU KNOW WHAT? EVERY WHALES AND DOLPHINS CAN'T KEEP UPVOTING EVERY POSTS. (VOTING POWER GUIDE)
Image made by me
You've probably checked a dolphin or a whale's wallet and you were amazed at what you saw.
I'm sure you will be like;
If I have this, I'll keep upvoting to get more curation rewards.
Why are they keeping their upvotes?
Why are they giving us a lesser percentage of the upvote?
Do they lose anything if they keep upvoting us?
Yes, they do, a little percentage of their voting power is lost whenever they upvote you.
I was having a conversation with a friend, he made a Ulog post created by @surpassinggoogle. His post was probably not curated and he was wondering why all the Ulog posts couldn't get a curation. I made him understand why, and I realised several people didn't know this.
Now, what is voting power?
Several posts has explained this in the past, but, getting them is quite difficult. Once a post exceeds 7 days, you need extra diggings to get it out. I wouldn't have known this if I didn't made a research. But, I'm making it easier for us by giving a detailed explanation on what voting power is all about.
Let's think of Voting power as an athlete.
Source: Pixabay
She's more stronger at the beginning of the race, the farther she goes, the weaker she becomes.
The more the number of upvotes given, the weaker the worth of vote.
When the voting power is at 100% and an 100% upvote is given, 2% of the power is lost.
Therefore, the new voting power will be at 98%.
When 50% upvote is given, you lose 1% of the voting power. Therefore, the new voting power will be 99%, provided the VP was at 100%.
The lower the voting power, the lower the worth of upvote. Nobody wants his/her upvote to worth less than the actual worth.
Also, the lower the vote weight used, the lower the percentage of voting power removed.
If the athlete runs slowly at the beginning of the race, she will lose only little strength. The faster she runs, the higher the tendency of getting weak.
Let's do some mathematics.
If 100% upvote takes 2% of the voting power.
Then, 15% upvote takes y% of voting power.
To get the percentage of voting power removed from a 15% upvote;
y = ( 2 × 15 ) / 100 = 0.3%
Well, @penguinpablo has saved us the headache from calculations. He built a website, steemnow, where you can calculate your worth of upvote by providing the voting power and the voting weight.
Below, is a perfect example to illustrate this.
An account with 20,000SP gives $5 upvote at 100% vote weight and 100% voting power.
screenshot
See what happens to the vote worth, when the voting power is at 98% with the same 100% voting weight.
screenshot
When you make 10 full 100% upvote, your voting power gets to 80%. See what the upvote becomes.
Trust me, you wouldn't want to find out what you get from a 20,000SP when the voting power is 10%.
Now, the voting power removed from each upvote isn't lost forever, it takes some time to come back, it charges.
When the athlete is tired, she needs to rest, she needs to regain her lost strength. While resting, her power comes back gradually.
That applies to voting power too, it needs to rest. Voting power spends 24 hours to charge up to 20% of the power. If your voting power is at 90%, you need to wait for 12 hours to get it back to 100%.
That's a lot of time, if you ask me.
So, resting is the solution to a low voting power. They let it charge, they let it rest!
Source: Pixabay
The more the vote weight, the higher the curation rewards. Everyone wants a high curation reward, but, they are limited to the number of upvotes they can give.
Using a lower vote weight, they can give more upvote and the voting power will be more controlled.
You can monitor your voting power on steemd.com/@username.
It is advisable not to exceed 80% of a voting power in a day, because it takes a longer time to charge.
Thanks for reading.