On March 4th, 2023, I announced an experiment of delegation to Ecency to prove that it’s probably the most profitable (in terms of APY) delegations feasible for a newcomer who posts frequently.
Here are the results of this week’s delegation with Ecency, and following this, a legend of the columns used, as well as a bit of analysis of the week:
Legend
Day: well, this one’s pretty self-explanatory. It starts the day after I delegated to Ecency so that there’s at least 24 hours permitted for rewards to kick in. It is a value used directly in the APY calculation.
Hive Delegated to Ecency: this is how much total Hive Power (HP) I have delegated to Ecency on the provided day. It is a value used indirectly in the APY calculation.
Average Hive Delegation to Date: this is the average of my delegated Hive Power (HP) to Ecency, current to the provided day. This gives an accurate value of how much delegation has been given over time, inclusive of all rewards (from Ecency Boosts and from other sources, including posts and comments). Since this value shows contributes directly to the rewards I get from Ecency, it is the most accurate value to use in calculating APY. Hence, it is a value used directly in the APY calculation.
Hive Reward: this is how much I have earned in rewards in HP from Ecency delegations on the provided day.
Total Hive Reward: this is how much I have in rewards in HP from Ecency delegations in total, up to the provided day. It is a value used directly in the APY calculation.
Hive Earned From Boosts: this is how much I have earned in rewards in HP due to Ecency boosts on the provided day, including the votes that come as a result of following Ecency’s curation trail (this value is approximate). It’s difficult to calculate earnings from promotions, and will not be included in this calculation.
Total Hive Earned From Boosts: this is how much I have earned in rewards in HP due to Ecency boosts in total, up to the provided day, including the votes that come as a result of following Ecency’s curation trail (this value is approximate). It is a value used directly in the APY calculation.
Hive Earned From Posts: this is how much I have earned in rewards in HP from posting and is inclusive of boosts and promotions, on the provided day. While I do reinvest this into Ecency delegations, it is NOT included in my APY calculation, as it is not an earning directly due to the delegation.
Total Hive Earned from Posts: this is how much I have earned in rewards in HP from posting and is inclusive of boosts and promotions, in total, up to the provided day. While I do reinvest this into Ecency delegations, it is NOT included in my APY calculation, as it is not an earning directly due to the delegation.
Other Hive Earned: this is how much I have earned in rewards in HP from other sources (i.e. comments, swing trades, etc.) on the provided day. While I do reinvest this into Ecency delegations, it is NOT included in my APY calculation, as it is not an earning directly due to the delegation. I have also come to realize that this is the most inaccurate and inconsistent column I have – please regard it only as a very, very rough estimate.
Hive Reinvested into Ecency Delegation: this is how much Hive I have reinvested into Ecency delegations on the provided day, and is all-inclusive (since I reinvest earnings from posts, comments, etc.). Its only relevance to the APY calculation is that it brings up my total amount delegated to Ecency. That particular aspect is included in the “Hive Delegated to Ecency” column.
Hive Earned APY To Date: this is the calculated APY based on the “Average Hive Delegation to Date,” “Total Hive reward,” and “Total Hive Earned From Boosts.” This provides a fair calculation of earning which are directly due to Ecency’s rewards (in Hive and boosts), while taking into account the growing delegation and changes in rewards over time. The APY is recorded on a daily basis and will paint a more accurate picture with more time. Some initial values (after the rewards from the initial boosts come in) may be outrageously high due to boosts from preexisting Ecency points (I had >3500, which is equivalent to 23 boosts, or <23 boosts + more promotions); these are accurate values but skewed due to the small time frame. They will become more accurate and reflective of reality over time. There is also a 7 day delay in some earnings, which may further skew the APY. While reinvestments from non-Ecency sources (i.e. posts, comments, trading, etc.) may cause the APY to appear larger, using the “Average Hive Delegation to Date” as a divisor compensates for this effect, thus giving a more accurate APY that’s a result of only Ecency delegation. It is the most fair divisor to use in this calculation because it accounts for changes in delegation over time, is a direct contributor to subsequent delegation rewards, and accounts for reinvested Hive Power only after it has been delegated to Ecency.
Total Ecency Points: this is the total amount of Ecency points that I have available on the provided day. Note that I begin with >3300 points, which is equivalent to 23 boosts, or <23 boosts + more promotions. None of these are used in calculations, but rather as a tally so that conversions can be better understood.
Ecency Points Earned From Delegation: this is the amount of Ecency points that I earned on the provided day. None of these are used in calculations, but rather as a tally so that conversions can be better understood.
Total Ecency Points Earned From Delegation: this is the amount of Ecency points that I earned in total, up to the provided day. None of these are used in calculations, but rather as a tally so that conversions can be better understood.
Daily Ecency Points Earned (All Sources): this is the amount of Ecency points that I earned through other activities (commenting, voting, posting, etc.) on the provided day. None of these are used in calculations, but rather as a tally so that conversions can be better understood.
Ecency Points Spent on Boosts / Promotions: this is the amount of Ecency points that I spent on boosts and promotions on the provided day. None of these are used in calculations, but rather as a tally so that conversions can be better understood. Looking 7 days ahead to the HP earned in boosts will reveal how much the points translate into HP.
This Week’s Earning Analysis
This happened to be a very interesting week for this experiment, chock full of bugs, errors, and other critters (some tastier than others)! It truly showed me the practical utility of this experiment, and I’m now very glad that I’m running it.
The APY to date as of the end of this week is 123.44%. Yes, you read that correctly, and the ridiculous early numbers were something I had predicted when I first introduced the experiment. These are real returns, but keep in mind that this happened due to a couple of factors: preexisting Ecency points that I had collected, and my activity on the blockchain, through the Ecency interface, which gave me more Ecency points. Thus, even if I didn’t have my previous Ecency points, I still earned several hundred Ecency points over the course of the week through comments, votes, usage bonus, etc. It adds up quite a bit, and although these aren’t a direct result of delegating to Ecency, it’s still a direct investment which goes back into my posts for more Boosts. Additionally, it shows the utility of using Ecency as a primary platform and being active!
Day 8 had a pleasant surprise – I decided to try to Boost last week’s experiment post with 200 Points instead of 150, and succeeded! Several factors likely contributed to this slightly higher Boost working, and I’ll try it again for this week’s post.
Day 9 started with a very substantial error. I tried to delegate my additional earned Hive Power, 2.674 HP, through Ecency (inputting the full amount, which was ~103 HP), and this resulted in only the (intended additional) amount of 2.674 HP being delegated because the interface automatically changed the amount and would not revert back. Thus, the remaining ~98 HP ended up undelegated. As a result, I lost out on 5 days’ worth of delegation rewards. I subsequently learned that this was a known bug/error which was being worked upon and would have a fix within a few days - what a shame that I fell right into that crack of time before it was fixed! Well, I still love Ecency for virtually everything, sans Threads because they have not yet been integrated.
Day 10 I realized a cardinal error which I should not have made, but did, and it was only revealed to me because of this experiment. I had originally miscalculated the Hive Power I’d be earnings from Boosts by a factor of 50%! As it turns out, I had forgotten to factor in the fact that half of rewards go back to curators. Thus, my previously presumed rewards of 2+ HP per Boost are halved to ~1+ HP per Boost (at current prices).
That’s definitely putting a bit of a damper in the rate of growth I had previously predicted – but in the name of honesty, I’m reporting what’s there, and learning along the way. That’s the way of science. That’s why I’m happy to conduct this experiment in an honest way.
That same day I also promoted the Week 1 Experiment post with 500 Ecency points. The promotions don’t seem to help extensively in terms of getting extra votes, but I like that they expose more people to the content. Actual viewership and engagement is such an important factor on Hive!
Day 12 I was again able to apply a 200 Ecency point Boost to my post. I figure that increasing the earnings early on will get me the HP needed to reinvest a bit sooner, thus increasing my earnings. It’s good that I am able to keep up the consistent quality to earn slightly higher Boosts!
Day 13 you’ll notice that my “Hive Earned From Boosts” is a little bit more than half of the prior amounts. This is because I forgot to change the setting to a 100% Powerup and forgot to set FreeCompliments as a beneficiary. I did that again later during the week, so you’ll see this happen again on next week’s results. On top of that, it occurred to me that my “Other Hive Earned” column has become increasingly inaccurate, even despite using hivestats.io, as I’m not checking at the same time every day, and HBD rewards are only partially accounted here.
In brief, this was a week of a steep learning curve for this experiment. I realized my error in estimating the APY due to the split between authors and curators, became more careful with delegations (and looking for bugs to squish), noticed that I could sometimes get higher Ecency Boosts, and am trying to figure out how to permanently set a 100% Powerup and beneficiary for posts via Ecency. We’ll see what next week brings!
allthese rewards will be used as a reinvestment vehicle and as a reward pool for everyone who posts and comments in the community, except for illegal content, and threads about the community!).It should be noted that my medicine-themed posts have @stemsocial as a 5% beneficiary, and of my posts now have a variable percentage as a beneficiary to @hive-140084 (the FreeCompliments community;
I hope that you’ve found this analysis informative. While it is not financial advice, it may be useful as a methodology of calculating your own returns on various projects on the Hive network.
Here are the prior weeks’ posts for further reference:
Week 1
If you’ve enjoyed the content of this post, are feeling down and need a shoulder to lean on, or would like to make someone’s day a bit better, or found an interesting post you’d like to share that you believe deserves a compliment, please join the FreeCompliments community. We welcome everyone with open arms. :)
How does the boost work?
Because I’ve tried and it doesn’t work. They always give me back my points.
There are a few things that go into getting the Boost: lower points tend to work better, quality content, posting directly from Ecency, voting when @ecency's voting power is on the higher end; participating in the Ecency Discord (even just saying "hi" sometimes) certainly helps. So far I haven't gotten back any returns - I tried 250 Points on this post successfully.
Keep in mind that as it gets nearer to all of the Ecency Points being given out that they will become much more valuable! 😉
Interesting, there's a limited supply of them? Somehow I overlooked this information. That would definitely make them highly valuable over the long term, especially if Hive continues and becomes widely adopted.
I don't remember what the numbers are, but over time they will become harder to earn
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@hive-132958 did I use the tags correctly on this post?
yeah! 💪
Hiya! Noticed you haven't been posting recently. Is this curation project still running?
I can try to introduce it on Threads every so often if it's still up.