To be honest with you, I haven't really checked before today how much my LISTNERDS holdings are worth. I knew I could be very pleased by that, since their price is relatively constant on the market and I kept staking, but never did the math until today.
Why today? Because I passed 1000 stacked LISTNERDS today, which places me on the 10th spot on the richlist for the token. Quite matching numbers, isn't it? :)
At 2 HIVE / LISTNERDS, that means 2020 HIVE. If we round the price of HIVE to 1$, that means 2020 USD. After roughly 3 months since launch, that means 700 USD per month. Not bad, huh? :)
It's obviously awesome, apart from all the other benefits I kept mentioning throughout time for using Listnerds.
Now, when I said 700 USD per month this is not exactly true. Because it started slowly and the amount kept growing as I kept staking more LISTNERDS. You should know that, it's the same principle on Hive, with HIVE Power and curation rewards.
Which means now I make more than 700 dollars per month. But that also means that as competition grows that amount won't be as high. Something you also should know from Hive, the more people share rewards from the reward pool, the less rewards everyone receives.
Am I doing myself a disservice sharing such a "golden secret"? Not at all.
Just think about it, while the LISTNERDS pool will be shared by more people, the activity on Listnerds will increase, there will be more eyeballs to look at your posts or whatever you are sharing there. And all the benefits that come from that.
Now, to earn a lot back from Listnerds is very difficult as a free member and if you don't stake CTP and LISTNERDS onto the platform.
Personally I started from the beginning with a business membership, which allows me to email daily for free (i.e. included in the price of the membership) to a number of accounts. There are a number of other benefits I won't list now (you can check and compare them from inside the site, on the "Upgrade" page), but you should know that I haven't heard anyone who upgraded to at least business who regretted it. Many upgraded directly to enterprise and you can see them at the top of the richlist now.
As a free member you can send an email every 7 days only to other free members (and to your referrals). What you can also do is read emails and earn MAIL tokens, plus the chance to win 5 CTP, 5 LISTNERDS or 10 CTP + 10 LISTNERDS if you get one of the random "shaky-shaky" bonuses as you open emails. Plus vote 1 email per day (or 4 every 4-5 days), if you don't stake any CTP.
What I didn't do, was that I didn't buy LISTNERDS, but I staked everything I earned. Going forward it might be a great idea to buy LISTNERDS, especially when you just started, because there will be a way to earn or win it back (something like buy 10 LISTNERDS, win 10 free LISTNERDS). Not sure when this will start, but this was a hint in the latest show from Blain and Jon. Plus, it's easier to grow by buying an initial stake, when others already have an established stake.
I also staked a good chunk of CTP on Listnerds from my personal stash. 5000 CTP to be exact. I won't stake anything more, as things stand now, because that already gives me 200 votes which is far more than I'll ever need. But I believe 500 CTP staked would be enough for a decent increase in someone's voting power on Listnerds, for starters. Plus staking all additional CTP rewards from Listnerds from there onwards, to increase this stake.
If you look at the numbers I presented you, it obviously pays off to be upgraded in Listnerds and to buy CTP, if you don't have, and LISTNERDS, if you want to start with a nice stash. The only thing one needs to take into consideration is that unstaking LISTNERDS or CTP from Listnerds takes 10 weeks and they won't count for the rewards while being unstaked. Before your Listnerds account becomes self-sustainable, you might need to push some funds into it for a couple of months (mainly to pay for the upgrade).
That's if you want to optimize it and earn more. You can always remain free, but don't expect wonders as a free member.
If you are ok with the long term locking - Listnerds provide one of the best APRs on Hive right now.
If we consider the price of the business membership as 77 HIVE per month (assumed HIVE at 1$), by now three payments would have been made for the business upgrade, if one upgrade on the first day at launch or close to it.
That's 77 x 3 = 231 HIVE for the upgrade.
If you were a long term member of the CTPTalk community, you would have the CTP to stake, no need to buy it. But let's say you'd buy 500 CTP at today's price. That would be 15-20 HIVE, depending on the available offer.
Let's say you also buy 10 LISTNERDS, so you won't start from scratch. That's 20 HIVE. But at the beginning I didn't buy any. I received 2 as an airdrop. I believe you might still receive 1 LISTNERDS as an airdrop as a free member, but I'm not sure.
So that would be about 270 HIVE. To get 2020 HIVE (1010 staked LISTNERDS). You have to keep in mind the staked LISTNERDS could be higher but also lower if your emails don't get validated (at least a 20 difference between upvotes and downvotes).
That's almost a 3000% APR if I calculated right. Anyway, it's a 748% ROI.
What defi? This is the mother of all defis, lol! But you need to put in some daily work, unlike in defi where often all it takes is the click of a few buttons. But the way Listnerds is designed it doesn't count as much if you have 1000 dollars to spend or 100k. While on regular defi platforms it matters.
I still find it amazing that APR! Incredible!
