I really like delegation as an option for using your stake in Steem. I've enjoyed experimenting with a variety of delegations over the past year (I'm almost at the anniversary of my first steem purchase), and I've changed what I'm doing and what I'm looking for over time.
At the moment, there are two very good opportunities: @steemhunt, which is offering a 20% return in a mix of steem/SBD and tokens; and @ocdb, a distribution bot, which is returning all SBD income to delegators.
@steemhunt
Steemhunt has always seemed very professional - a clear business and development plan and purpose, a well-presented website, a great team of people and systems for moderating. The project is moving into the next Review stage of development.
I have delegated to steemhunt in the past and I have some tokens sitting in my wallet. With the latest trading and service developments, I've decided to start delegating to them again. I'm currently building my delegation as I move things around, but I'm aiming for a minimum of 200SP and let's see how it goes.
@ocdb
A new kid on the block (chain), @ocdb is a distribution bot, sharing rewards amongst whitelisted creators according to their bid (currently a ceiling of 35 SBD) and distributing SBD income back to delegators.
There is a 10% return for creators, and 10% less return for delegators than they would achieve through self-voting. The intention of the distribution bot is to grow accounts faster than they would organically, which offers new hope to smaller accouints, beavering away for not much in the way of rewards.
As the whitelist grows and the number of creators buying votes increases, the maximum size of the vote will decrease - in the past week or so, we've seen it dropping from 45 SBD to 35 SBD. If the bot is going to maintain those higher level bids, we'll need to see more delegations coming in.
spreading your vote to more accounts
Earlier in the year, I was delegating to @actifit and @dlike. One of the primary reasons for doing this was because it spread my vote wider to a whole range of tiny accounts who had a chance of a daily decent upvote.
Both DApps offer a weekly return of mixed steem/SBD and tokens for your delegation. I had a look at my @actifit tokens and, according to Steem Engine, they seem to have a market value around $2,000.
I stopped delegating for different reasons in each case:
- @actifit introduced a new voting system where the daily vote was linked to your delegation as well as your level of activity and the quality of your post. This changed the motivation for posting for me: it became I must post daily to get full benefit of my delegation, rather than I am posting daily because I am engaging in physical activity and that is a-good-thing in itself.
- @dlike seems to have gone through several iterations of its business plan, and it has a new direction, whitepaper and website. That's not unusual for start-ups, but I got a little confused and some of the planned developments, in particular, boards, seem to have disappeared. I like the new website, it's a classy way of sharing links and, sometimes, that's perfect.
There's a challenge for both these DApps that, as accounts grow larger and receive more and higher value votes, the incoming @actifit/ @dlike vote no longer covers the outgoing beneficiary rewards.
Investor's tingle
Like most investors - and that's what delegators are - I'm very sensitive to any messages that things are not quite as I would like or expect them to be. And like most investors, I tend to respond fairly quickly.
The most flamboyant example that I've been involved in was @dstors. Even before the gobsmacking car crash of customer/delegator relationships, my spidey senses were tingling and I'd been thinking that I must have a closer look at what was going on. The reaction to @whatsup's post confirmed my own concerns and my delegation was moved within a day or two.
I've just dropped another DApp. I was in the first round of delegators and promised a 3% vote each day. There's been several interruptions to this, all of which have previously been rectified after a visit to the discord channel.
But we're now on to the third or fourth time, it's been four days, four posts without a vote, two messages in discord with no response, and no general announcement explaining if there is a problem (it could be illness, a new baby, a bug). Sorry, but no. Time to move on.
Is this harsh? I don't think so. It's a really good discipline to building a robust, sustainable project or business. Things go wrong, of course they do - look at KFC's chicken chaos - but you need to work with your investors.
Investor's rant
For a while, I delegated to @steem-ua.
I was always ambivalent about this initiative, although I've never been able to put my finger exactly on why. There was something about, at the end of the day, you're buying a vote and dress it up how you will, that's what you're doing, so say it and stop pretending it's something else.
Now, I think @steem-ua is based on two flawed ideas:
- that everyone is going to be followed by a witness, sooner or later. They are not, it is simply not feasible. It also assumes that all witnesses are reputable and that you would want them following you.
- that the reputation system is broken. It's not. It's just a shorthand that gives you a starter for ten. Like any other social environment, you need to base your judgment on evidence collected over time.
Fundamentally, @steem-ua is an elitist voting circle where the rewards are funnelled upwards towards the highest earners. After receiving consecutive votes of 0.04, 0.07 and 0.05 cents for a 250SP delegation, I did some investigation: on the final day I received a vote, there were some 10,000 posts, 800 of which received a @steem-ua vote. Not even 10% of active accounts. The rest can't afford it, don't care or it's not relevant to them.
For me, this falls into the snake oil category: a dodgy premise that benefits some investors at the expense of others. The sooner this is abandoned and the delegations invested elsewhere, the better. My suggestions would be @ocdb and @steembasicincome, both much more transparent initiatives.
One Investor's Thoughts
Usual disclaimer: this is not financial advice and do your own research
I've mentioned @steemhunt and @ocdb above. These seem to me to be good investment deals. I haven't compared them to the promotional bid bots like @smartsteem. But these seem to fit the bill for initiatives combining a good return for investors with growing the blockchain overall and a straightforward proposition.
@steembasicincome
My other favourite is @steembasicincome (sbi). I love the premise that you buy two shares at a time - one for yourself and one for someone else - immediate win-win. It's a great way to support new accounts and make sure they're getting a boost, an incentive to stay with steem. I've also supported community accounts which distribute votes to smaller accounts with sbi shares. These include @needleworkmonday and @runningproject.
The other things I like about @steembasicincome are:
- you get a bonus share for every 2SP delegation, and additional rshares when you vote for sbi posts.
- your benefits accumulate and are distributed when you post. So, you are not compelled to post every day to receive maxium benefit. The rewards can fit into a much more flexible - two or three times a week - posting pattern.
- there are occasional glitches, but these have always been dealt with promptly.
Some other things to think about
I delegate to some things because they are a good thing to have around. Some provide a small upvote. Whether they provide an upvote or not, they all contribute to steem being a better place and that's worth investing in:
- @steemflagrewards I have mixed feelings about flagging. There's only been one occasion when I've felt I've wanted to flag a post and that had more to do with it irritating me (I went and made a cup of tea instead). But I appreciate there are things to be done and this is one way of contributing to the common wealth. It's like paying your council tax and getting your bins emptied.
- @steemclub-uk, @needleworkmonday, @chops.support and @isotonic: small accounts that support niche communities. I also delegate to @adollaraday which donates to charities.
Conclusions
How you choose to delegate depends on what your aims are.
Having tried many things, I'm starting to develop my criteria:
- straightforward, transparent premise.
- can demonstrate how it is going to contribute to growth of the blockchain.
- combines returns for investors with an egalitarian approach to the community.
- good communication and speedy resolution of problems.
- separates delegators' rewards from posting rewards.
As an investor, I like having a mixed portfolio of voting power to invest in individual accounts I enjoy and delegating to initiatives that are going to increase the value of my investment long-term by building the blockchain.
Edit: Daily Steem Delegation Statistics for 27 April 2019 follow @eforucom for updates.
Great interesting and transparent post on the topic of delegation @shanibeer and I have my eye on delegating some to Steemhunt, but first I'm trying to gather some more SP, also I didn't know what was the deal with @ocdb I might consider giving them something also, would you say it's worth delegating to @steembasicincome if you already have a few shares with them?
I guess the first question is: what is the best way of using your SP to achieve your aims, which at the moment, seems to be to grow your SP? Would you earn more by keeping your voting power as it is, or delegating some of your SP for other returns and reducing your voting power and curation rewards?
You have to have some shares with sbi in order to delegate, and I believe each share or bonus share has a vote value of 0.0024 (this does change so may not be the latest figure) each week. So you could work it out :)
Eg 5 shares plus 190SP delegation = 100 shares x 0.0024 = 0.24c a week or 0.034 each post (I think). The great thing about delegation is you can stop doing it when you want to :)
I did a post on delegation returns recently on a selection of delegatees and looked at it at the simplest level, how much SP you delegate and how much dividend you get back. The finding was quite interesting. I didn't includes upvotes and tokens as that got complicated and with the latter i couldn't figure out the returns in a moving market .
Just out of interest have you worked out if you're really getting 20% returns? Its just that on my simple analysis , the actual returns from one delegatee was far off from what they advertised . Not saying its the case here, but was just wondering.
Hello :) I'm linking your post because it has some really useful figures to add to what I've written above.
With @steemhunt, I feel it's a little unclear exactly what you are getting and I'm guessing that part of the 20% is tokens. I haven't done any recent analysis, although I did look at the returns over a three month period last year (I never published this), and I plan to do a similar thing now that I've moved some of my delegations.
As a general thing for me, it's not only about the returns, it's also about what am I investing in. Steemhunt has looked consistently good in terms of operation and has much bigger, much clearer plans than some other options. Other general principles are:
For each of us there are different answers and preferences at different times - I would move some of my delegations if I was taking a break from posting. I don't think there is one right answer and my post reflects my preferences.
My reference to the tokens was really about how to value them for the purposes of calculating returns. Based on my calcs on just dividends, the upvotes and token value would have to be quite significant to generate total 20% returns from the three buckets added together.
And you're definitely right about personal preferences. The good thing about the delegations are that there are so many options depending on whether you're a pure financial investor, an ethical one, want to support your favourite projects, the platform, minnows or yourself, and how often you post in Steemit.
I am a delegation to upvote bot were i offer a daily upvote to delegators. I am able to offer a ROI of between 140-160% and it is another way that users can invest SP. To get the best ROI you would have to post everyday and this is not for everyone. There are many other options out there apart from delegate to receive a daily SBD/STEEM payment. Great post, was a really good read. Thank you
Love this @shanibeer. I’m still with Steem-ua but then I have this compulsion to post 7 days a week.
I may reduce this to 100Sp as then it fits my new regime of 4 post a week.
Would like to know who failed to give you the 3% vote a day, you can tell me at SteemCamp if not here.
@goblinknackers will be interested in all this I’m sure. I’ll introduce you in 2 weeks.
Thank you :) It's a really interesting time with a lot of competition for delegations, I believe that will really push up the quality and robustness of new initiatives/offers. I think we'll start to see life-cycles - new accounts going for @actifit and @dlike, progressing to @tasteem and then onto things like @ocbd.
That compulsion thing is a problem and although it might seem like a good idea initially from the project's perspective, I feel eventually it will undermine the investor base.
I didn't want to put the name of the DApp as I didn't want to be unfair. Overall, I think they're doing a good job, but judging by the conversation in discord, they are maybe focusing on users and promotion at the expense of investors at the moment. Happy to share when we meet or you can look in steemworld :)
I thought about @goblinknackers when I was writing this :)
Hi @shanibeer, how long does undelegation take for it to return to your wallet?
Thanks!
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Five days, I believe.
If you look in steemworld.org/@ashtv in the delegations section, there is tab for expiring delegations which will give you the date the sp returns to your wallet.
Wonderful, found it, thank you.
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I've delegated most of my SP, but not all of this is in expectation of getting a return. I want to help people and projects who need it. I do get something back from a few projects, but it's not that big a deal for me.
SBI is a cool project. I am buying a lot more shares for people recently to help them out. It will be interesting to see how that scales.
Not sure about Steem-UA. My rep with them has plummeted recently for no obvious reason. I would say the standard Steem rep is broken as you can just buy it and some of the highest reps have been achieved in that way. My thought was that repeated votes from a given account should have diminished effect on rep so that you need wide support for it to go up.
Hi @steevc, I think that's right, there's room for all kinds of investors, I guess it is about each person finding what is right for them and what sits best with their values and what they want to achieve here (and maybe in life?)
It did occur to me as I was writing the post that there are lots of opportunities for learning financial literacy just by taking part in steem and trying out different things.
I'm not sure if there is a technological answer to reputation. Regardless of the number, I would still be looking at how does this person behave and do I want to give them my time and attention. Your idea about diminishing the effect of repeated votes from one source could be a good idea.
Interesting post.
I’m new to delegation so this is a really useful and detailed breakdown of WHY you’re delegating or not.
I’m delegating 1500sp to two dApps at the moment - and I’m gaining a feel of what the benefits are (or not) and how things okay out. Might switch things up soon, and like you say sometimes there’s no time for hanging around if service poor etc
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The great thing about delegation, as an investor, is that you can change things very quickly. That's not so great for projects, I guess, that often need stability. I expect, though, that most investors are fairly passive - once they've made an investment, it sits there.
interesting thoughts, I like @steemhunt, @actifit because I use it, on my other account, and for some reason steem UA works for me, even though it is an elitist upvote circle.
I'm obviously a big fan of ocdb, so that's well worth a delegation!
I've never looked into delegating to SBI, rather buy in shares TBH.
I quite like having a lot of SP to play with rather than delegating, but interesting to hear your thoughts.
I wouldn't do smartsteem.
This might interest you: https://steemit.com/delegation/@daan/looking-for-another-7000-sp-lease-6-weeks-for-167-400-steem-18-6-apr
@wherein also has a decent return.
It's all horses for courses, isn't it? What people prefer to do with their stake. I don't have a lot of time on here, so delegating to others to distribute votes makes sense to me. Although thinking about it this morning (and after reading your BEOS post), I might just keep it simple and in one or two things :)
That BEOS thing was a learning curve for sure!
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Fantastic post, and it sums up why Steemit is a great investment prospect! One of my main grouches about Steemit is the 7-day upvote window, and as I've been away for a week without internet on my Mountain Leader training assessment, and prior to that I spent a couple of weeks doing nothing but revision, I missed the chance to upvote this excellent post. I can't even re-Steem it, so I will bookmark it instead.
Investment, in my opinion, is one of the great overlooked advantages of Steemit. There are so many different ways to delegate and get ROI, and this post outlines some excellent opportunities. I tend to be quite a lazy investor, but I have removed my delegation a couple of times when it wasn't working in the way I'd hoped. And as you point out, it's not always about financial return.
Your post not only alerts me to some great delegation opportunities, but reminds me that being an active investor on Steemit really can pay dividends.
Glad you found it useful. I agree, the 7 day upvote window can be frustrating sometimes. I've just published a post about SteemCampUK on Saturday, where I hope we'll be talking about some of these things.
Great - I'll have a look. Wish I could join you.
I think @ashtv is planning a little recording. If we were more together, we could try a little skype or similar. Are you around on Saturday?
Sadly no - I'm booked to shadow a navigation training day in the mountains! That's a great idea though.
Do you know, that sounds great! I almost wish I was shadowing you. Which part of the UK are you?
We need to think a bit more about how we involve people without everyone having to travel.
Thanks @shanibeer! I'm in Glasgow. I think Skype is a great idea - or alternatively holding events in the "middle" of the country - maybe Yorkshire or Lancashire.
Hello @shanibeer
Does @steemhunt offer 20% returns for delegations?
Do they give it everyday?
Thanks in advance.
Hello @cryptopie, @steemhunt say they give 20% yearly interest in this post. This post by @livinguktaiwan has some different figures.
Hi @shanibeer thank you for clarifying that up. I appreciate it.
Now,the best bot is @tipu for sure (auto reinvest and tipU Token) https://steem-engine.com/?p=market&t=TPU
Thanks for the tip @smarthamster72 :)
all info here https://tipu.online/investors_data
Interesting i didnt know about the bonus sbi shares for delegation??? I will be seriously looking into this now! Thanks
Enjoy!
You got a 50.76% upvote from @ocdb courtesy of @shanibeer! :)
@ocdb is a non-profit bidbot for whitelisted Steemians, current max bid is 30 SBD and the equivalent amount in STEEM.
Check our website https://thegoodwhales.io/ for the whitelist, queue and delegation info. Join our Discord channel for more information.
If you like what @ocd does, consider voting for ocd-witness through SteemConnect or on the Steemit Witnesses page. :)
Rather than Delegation I am really happy with Minnowboosters Voteselling.... I let my Steempower be used to Upvote Whitelisted Minnows when my Steemvoting Power goes over 98% .... usually while I’m sleeping and I am earning about 1 SBD per day + Curation Rewards
So about 100 Steem per month.... while I sleep,
https://www.minnowbooster.net/vote-selling/?ref=2542