There are four major mechanisms of value transfer in Steem:
We can treat #4 as a value transfer by comparing the share of VESTS owned with the share of rewards obtained. If everybody voted for themselves, then author and curation rewards distribution would exactly match VESTS distribution. But those with the most VESTS do not receive a proportionate share of author and curation rewards. Here are some stats for the week of July 20th-26th:
| Category | Actual rewards | Expected rewards | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insiders | 0 | 152780 | -152780 STEEM |
| Top 1% accounts | 187582 | 198886 | - 11303 STEEM |
| 1-2% accounts | 10519 | 58883 | +48363 STEEM |
| 2-3% accounts | 4944 | 30528 | +25584 STEEM |
| 3-4% accounts | 2864 | 22211 | +19347 STEEM |
The large amount of VESTS held by insider accounts (39%) that do not receive posting rewards benefits all the smaller accounts. We can treat this as a transfer of value, as if the VESTS created rewards, but those rewards were given to other accounts.
We could probably divide up witness rewards in the same fashion, but almost all of them go to top 1% accounts anyway.
Here is schematic showing the largest net wealth transfers (denominated in STEEM) for the week of July 20th, between classes of accounts partitioned by wealth.
(When constructing the graph I collapsed top 1% with the insider accounts.)
This week had lots of money move out of the direct STEEM ecosystem and into exchanges; even the long tail of small accounts was a net "seller". The major net recipient of internal transfers was the top 1%.
