That first chart looks distressingly like one of our (US) various insolvent pension funds (maybe Illinois), draining off a large capital stockpile by more than earnings every year.
Could it be that a large part of this rewards pool drain is coming from the whales who were involved in the no-voting project before the HF, but are voting now, increasing the "cumulative claims"? Thus, resulting in more total vests claims in the reward pool per day, necessitating diving into the capital "savings" of the pool?
"Therefore, I would expect rewards to be lowest around 28 July"
Thanks for the concrete prediction. Looks like solid analysis. Will be good when they start trending back up.
I'm sure the no-whale-vote experiment was a factor in because it added to the impact of the increased voting power. However, that is already accounted for and should still level out in the next 2 weeks.