AH! Excellent. Why do you think SMTs will get us closer to a solution that eliminates bidbots?
Also the peaks at 10 and 12 with a valley at 11 are interesting. I wonder if someone were just voting on everything/randomly at the 10 mark, if they could grab some nicer change than if they voted randomly on everything at the 15 mark, or if that's actually because it's manual curation and people are correctly selecting what WILL be popular.
I will write a post on SMTs at some point. I think that it's just a question of surplus capital finding a more rewarding home than bid-bots but I need to think it all through.
There are quite a few (top) curators who are voting around the 10-12 minute mark. They use small votes but on posts that are fairly certain to reach high payout based on past history of the accounts. Voting at 10 minutes sacrifices 1/3 of the curation reward but the early voting position can more than compensate, even compared to fifteen minutes where the larger votes come in.
I prefer trying to pick good opportunities around the 14.5 minute mark, although it's getting harder as HF20 beds in.