You've likely seen the marine-inspired categories used by many Steem explorers to rank users. These rankings are based on a user's vests (which IIUC at any given time is directly proportional to their STEEM Power). From small to large, these categories are Plankton, Minnow, Dolphin, Orca, and Whale. While I've read a few posts on these categories, I couldn't find what their actual definitions were.
When in doubt, check the source code! SteemPlus is a Chrome extension to add additional frontend tweaks to many Steem explorers. I took a look at the @steem-plus source code, which contains the following getUserRank javascript function:
function getUserRank (vests) {
console.log('User vests: ',vests);
var rank = 'Plankton';
if (vests >= 1000000000) {
rank = 'Whale';
} else if (vests >= 100000000) {
rank = 'Orca';
} else if (vests >= 10000000) {
rank = 'Dolphin';
} else if (vests >= 1000000) {
rank = 'Minnow';
}
return rank;
};
From https://steemd.com/ I found the current STEEM to million-VESTS conversion rate under the steem_per_mvests variable. As of 2018-03-20, this conversion factor is 489.974. In addition, steemd.com provides total_vesting_shares, which currently equals 385,445,381,997.9 VESTS. Using this total amount, I calculated "Share": what minimum percent of total vests a user needs to obtain a certain rank:
| Rank | mVESTS | STEEM | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plankton | 0 | 0 | 0.0000% |
| Minnow | 1 | 490 | 0.0003% |
| Dolphin | 10 | 4,900 | 0.0026% |
| Orca | 100 | 48,997 | 0.0259% |
| Whale | 1,000 | 489,974 | 0.2594% |
Now I don't fully understand the relationship between STEEM and VESTS and how the total supply of these measures will change over time. Furthermore, I believe you only receive VESTS on STEEM Power (excluding Power you've delegated). Therefore, if you want to achieve a certain rank you will need at least the number of STEEM in form of Power in the table above.
Would love for any comments!
References:
Hey @dhimmel - here's a post I made a while back explaining the relationship between VESTS and SP: https://steemit.com/steem/@yabapmatt/understanding-vests-and-the-steem-power-illusion
Basically there's no such thing as Steem Power - it's all just VESTS. VESTS are a token on the Steem blockchain like STEEM and SBD and Steem Power is just a way of showing the value of your VESTS in terms of STEEM.
The post can explain it in more detail.
@yabapmatt great post! Yes, I did not understand this dynamic at all.
Here are the spoilers:
So STEEM Power is really just there to show the value in STEEM of your VESTS?
When you power down, you essentially are selling VESTS for STEEM in 13 separate time-gapped trades. Does that mean on week 13 you are actually getting more STEEM than on week 1 because the STEEM/VEST exchange rate has increased? Therefore, when you power down, you will actually get more STEEM in the end than the amount of STEEM Power you initiated the power down with?
Yes and yes. I'm actually working on a new Steem wallet project that will show Steem Power to 6 decimal places with a cool animation so you can see it increasing in real time to bring attention to this fact that few people are aware of. Hopefully i'll have some time to finish it up sometime soon.
Wow! Now I'm starting to wonder whether STEEM Power is a lousy concept in general. Perhaps we'd be better off if frontends explicitly valued things in terms of VESTS or MVESTS. I guess the power up / power down terminology is explanatory, but VESTS definitely are underappreciated when they're the actual measure in the blockchain.
Can't wait to try that out.
So holding STEEM as opposed to VESTS sucks in three ways:
Now what happens if everyone sells their VESTS for STEEM? This would decrease the total number of VESTS. Does the number of new VESTS created also go down? In other words, is the inflation rate a percent of total VESTS or a set number of VESTS?
My feeling is that Steem is overly complicated, especially for the mainstream audience it's trying to reach, so I actually like that they created the concept of STEEM POWER to simplify things. If the majority of people on here who are struggling to understand basic cryptocurrency concepts had to now deal with VESTS too I think it would really be too much.
That being said I think information about VESTS and how STEEM POWER really works should be more easily available and visible for those of us who prefer that level of detail.
Yes, the only downside to holding VESTS is the long-term commitment. If you are ok being invested for the long term then there's absolutely no reason to hold liquid STEEM (except maybe to pay for a few things here and there).
The number of new VESTS that are created is governed by the overall inflation rate of the platform, which includes both liquid and vested STEEM. It is not affected by at all by powering up or down.
All this while I used to think I was a minnow. Just discovered I'm lower than the ladder. Plankton?
Hello friend, how are you?
Ami I love to travel also although your publications are not focused on travel I see that you are doing very well.
I wanted to know if you can support me in my publications and give me some corrections to improve please.