On March 4th, 2023, I announced an experiment of delegation to Ecency to prove that it’s probably the most profitable (in terms of APY) delegations feasible for a newcomer who posts frequently.
Here are the results of this week’s delegation with Ecency, and following this, a legend of the columns used, as well as a bit of analysis of the week:
Legend
Day: well, this one’s pretty self-explanatory. It starts the day after I delegated to Ecency so that there’s at least 24 hours permitted for rewards to kick in. It is a value used directly in the APY calculation.
Hive Delegated to Ecency: this is how much total Hive Power (HP) I have delegated to Ecency on the provided day. It is a value used indirectly in the APY calculation.
Average Hive Delegation to Date: this is the average of my delegated Hive Power (HP) to Ecency, current to the provided day. This gives an accurate value of how much delegation has been given over time, inclusive of all rewards (from Ecency Boosts and from other sources, including posts and comments). Since this value shows contributes directly to the rewards I get from Ecency, it is the most accurate value to use in calculating APY. Hence, it is a value used directly in the APY calculation.
Hive Reward: this is how much I have earned in rewards in HP from Ecency delegations on the provided day.
Total Hive Reward: this is how much I have in rewards in HP from Ecency delegations in total, up to the provided day. It is a value used directly in the APY calculation.
Hive Earned From Boosts: this is how much I have earned in rewards in HP due to Ecency boosts on the provided day, including the votes that come as a result of following Ecency’s curation trail (this value is approximate). It’s difficult to calculate earnings from promotions, and will not be included in this calculation.
Total Hive Earned From Boosts: this is how much I have earned in rewards in HP due to Ecency boosts in total, up to the provided day, including the votes that come as a result of following Ecency’s curation trail (this value is approximate). It is a value used directly in the APY calculation.
Hive Earned From Posts: this is how much I have earned in rewards in HP from posting and is inclusive of boosts and promotions, on the provided day. While I do reinvest this into Ecency delegations, it is NOT included in my APY calculation, as it is not an earning directly due to the delegation.
Total Hive Earned from Posts: this is how much I have earned in rewards in HP from posting and is inclusive of boosts and promotions, in total, up to the provided day. While I do reinvest this into Ecency delegations, it is NOT included in my APY calculation, as it is not an earning directly due to the delegation.
Other Hive Earned: this is how much I have earned in rewards in HP from other sources (i.e. comments, swing trades, etc.) on the provided day. While I do reinvest this into Ecency delegations, it is NOT included in my APY calculation, as it is not an earning directly due to the delegation. I have also come to realize that this is the most inaccurate and inconsistent column I have – please regard it only as a very, very rough estimate.
Hive Reinvested into Ecency Delegation: this is how much Hive I have reinvested into Ecency delegations on the provided day, and is all-inclusive (since I reinvest earnings from posts, comments, etc.). Its only relevance to the APY calculation is that it brings up my total amount delegated to Ecency. That particular aspect is included in the “Hive Delegated to Ecency” column.
Hive Earned APY To Date: this is the calculated APY based on the “Average Hive Delegation to Date,” “Total Hive reward,” and “Total Hive Earned From Boosts.” This provides a fair calculation of earning which are directly due to Ecency’s rewards (in Hive and boosts), while taking into account the growing delegation and changes in rewards over time. The APY is recorded on a daily basis and will paint a more accurate picture with more time. Some initial values (after the rewards from the initial boosts come in) may be outrageously high due to boosts from preexisting Ecency points (I had >3500, which is equivalent to 23 boosts, or <23 boosts + more promotions); these are accurate values but skewed due to the small time frame. They will become more accurate and reflective of reality over time. There is also a 7 day delay in some earnings, which may further skew the APY. While reinvestments from non-Ecency sources (i.e. posts, comments, trading, etc.) may cause the APY to appear larger, using the “Average Hive Delegation to Date” as a divisor compensates for this effect, thus giving a more accurate APY that’s a result of only Ecency delegation. It is the most fair divisor to use in this calculation because it accounts for changes in delegation over time, is a direct contributor to subsequent delegation rewards, and accounts for reinvested Hive Power only after it has been delegated to Ecency.
Total Ecency Points: this is the total amount of Ecency points that I have available on the provided day. Note that I begin with >3300 points, which is equivalent to 23 boosts, or <23 boosts + more promotions. None of these are used in calculations, but rather as a tally so that conversions can be better understood.
Ecency Points Earned From Delegation: this is the amount of Ecency points that I earned on the provided day. None of these are used in calculations, but rather as a tally so that conversions can be better understood.
Total Ecency Points Earned From Delegation: this is the amount of Ecency points that I earned in total, up to the provided day. None of these are used in calculations, but rather as a tally so that conversions can be better understood.
Daily Ecency Points Earned (All Sources): this is the amount of Ecency points that I earned through other activities (commenting, voting, posting, etc.) on the provided day. None of these are used in calculations, but rather as a tally so that conversions can be better understood.
Ecency Points Spent on Boosts / Promotions: this is the amount of Ecency points that I spent on boosts and promotions on the provided day. None of these are used in calculations, but rather as a tally so that conversions can be better understood. Looking 7 days ahead to the HP earned in boosts will reveal how much the points translate into HP.
This Week’s Earning Analysis
This week, I wanted to give myself a bit of a bet in regards to how low my APY would drop by the end of the week, given the fact that I only had a single post give rewards on Day 1. My logic was that I’d go from 3 weeks to 4 weeks of delegation, which is a 33% increase. Thus, my divisor would increase by an average of 33%. Starting 154% (from Day 1), I’d divide this by 4/3, yielding an approximation of 116%. Now, considering that I had 5 days of an uncharacteristically low 2 HP delegation, I could likely increase the divisor a bit further. Thus, without any specific further calculations, I rendered a wild guess of 100-110%.
So how accurate was my guess? The APY to date as of the end of this week is 112.82%. Pretty close! Let’s see what happened over the course of this week:
Day 22 I received a kind tip of 50 Ecency points from @melinda010100. It’s not easy to earn this in a single day, so it was quite helpful! However, there were also a couple of setbacks: my post didn’t earn the 15 Ecency points that it should have received from posting using Ecency, and I also noticed that the 0.250 point rewards (which are normally distributed for every 15 minutes spent logged into Ecency) weren’t consistently being rewarded. They’d come in anywhere between 10 minutes to an hour apart.
Day 23 I decided to undelegate ~30 HP from a particular account (which will remained unnamed… I’m civil!). You’ll notice that I redelegated these (along with my other earnings) on Day 28, since undelegating takes 5 days to take full effect.
Day 25 you’ll notice that my “Ecency Points Earned From Delegation” was 0. I logged off before I could see those rewards. They came in the next day, hence it was about twice as large on Day 26. Day 26 and Day 27 also had an unusually large Hive Rewards – and I simply can’t explain this one! Call it divine intervention, if you will.
Now I’ll challenge myself and everyone else reading this to guess the upcoming week’s APY to date. Keep these major factors in mind: 1) I delegated an additional 30 HP to Ecency (which will raise the average delegation), 2) this will be a transition from week 4 → week 5, and 3) I made only a single post this week with a boost identical to last week’s. Next week will have more posts, but that will affect the following week’s APY due to the 1-week reward delay.
My guess for the next week’s APY to date is 95-100%, and for the following week >100% (will give a more accurate value guess next week!).
It should be noted that my medicine-themed posts have @stemsocial as a 5% beneficiary, and all of my posts now have a variable percentage as a beneficiary to @hive-140084 (the FreeCompliments community; these rewards will be used as a reinvestment vehicle and as a reward pool for everyone who posts and comments in the community, except for illegal content, and threads about the community!).
I hope that you’ve found this analysis informative. While it is not financial advice, it may be useful as a methodology of calculating your own returns on various projects on the Hive network.
Here are the prior weeks’ posts for further reference:
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
If you’ve enjoyed the content of this post, are feeling down and need a shoulder to lean on, or would like to make someone’s day a bit better, or found an interesting post you’d like to share that you believe deserves a compliment, please join the FreeCompliments community. We welcome everyone with open arms. :)