Foundational Principles for maximising Curation ROI emphasise accumulating Hive Power (HP), understanding the core mechanics, and managing voting activity.
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Prioritise Hive Power Accumulation: Effective HP is the basis of curation rewards. A higher HP results in a greater vote value and potential earnings. Earning strategies should involve consistently staking HP (powering up) or acquiring HIVE specifically for staking.
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Master the Core Mechanics: It's crucial to have a solid understanding of the 50/50 author/curator split, the implications of the 5-minute Reverse Auction Window, and how Voting Mana and Resource Credits function. This knowledge is necessary for making informed and profitable voting decisions. The 50/50 split refers to how post payouts are generally divided between the content creator and the curators. The Reverse Auction Window applies a penalty to curation rewards for votes cast within the first 5 minutes of a post's creation, with the penalty decreasing linearly until the 5-minute mark, after which the full reward percentage is received. Voting Mana represents an account's capacity to cast valuable votes, decreasing with each vote and regenerating over 5 days. Resource Credits (RCs) are consumed by all actions on the blockchain, and their maximum amount and regeneration rate are proportional to effective HP.
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Maintain Consistent and Strategic Voting Activity: To effectively use regenerated Voting Mana, avoid letting it reach 100% consistently (which is inefficient) or dropping significantly below 80% (which reduces vote value). A regular voting schedule that utilises regenerated mana effectively is recommended.
Understanding the trade-offs and tailoring your approach is also vital, as there isn't one universally "best" strategy.
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Effort-Return Spectrum: There is a trade-off between the time/effort required and the potential return. While some strategies, like manual curation, demand significant active involvement and potentially offer the highest theoretical ROI, others, like delegation, are more passive but returns depend on the project's performance.
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Risk Appetite: Assess your tolerance for different risks. Strategies like manual curation involve performance risk, while delegation carries project viability risk.
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Control Preference: Consider how much direct control you want over your votes. Manual curation offers full control, whereas delegation involves ceding direct voting control for passivity.
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Influence of Account Size: Your optimal strategy may vary depending on your HP stake. Smaller accounts might find delegation or participation in point systems more rewarding initially than manual curation due to lower vote values. Larger accounts have potential for higher returns across various strategies and more flexibility.
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Personalised Strategy Recommendation: The ideal strategy is unique to each individual. It depends on your available time, technical expertise, risk tolerance, desired level of control, specific goals (e.g., HP growth, USD value, specific token accumulation), and current HP stake. Based on this self-assessment, you should select or combine strategies that align best with your situation.