For the past 7 days I've been delegating my modest Steem Power (2700-odd) to Minnowboost to see what returns I could receive. The results are in....& they are uninspiring.
(Actually I'm writing on day 6 but I can extrapolate the last day's payout.)
All transactions are visible on my wallet.
Why delegation? Well I admit, I'm ambivalent about the whole thing...it seems to short circuit the beautiful free-market mechanisms of Steemit. If too much SP was delegated it would probably kill the ecosystem. BUT Ned said he found the idea interesting at Steemfest2, so it must be all right then...ha! I wanted to test if it would be a viable strategy to just delegate my votes if I'm going to be away from Steem for any length of time. Perhaps delegation would help my little stack to grow while I was away having fun.
To skip straight to my conclusion: The returns are too low & I didn't like the loss of my ability to upvote, I hadn't realised quite how much I valued supporting someone with an upvote, until I lost the ability to do so. I'll probably not bother delegating in future. Now, show me higher returns & I might do it again if I was going to be AFK for a week or so.
Total Delegated SteemPower: 2,700 (and change)
Total earned: 4.5 SD
Annualised Return: 8.5% ish (too low to be worth the bother in the crypto space IMO)