As all the minnows that are actively searching for ways to grow probably already realized, there is plenty of possible solutions. The ones that are currently known by me are @randowhale, @whaleshares, @minnowsupport and my lastly found candidate - @minnowbooster. This article will be an “in-depth” research, whether using the @minnowbooster loan of SP is worth it, or not.

A well-running projects

Getting to know whether @randowhale is worth it is rather easy. One has to go to steemnow.com fill in randowhale and check the value of its vote when on 1%. That amount has to be further cut by 25% (curation reward) and you have the result (- the decrease of value over time that no one seems to care about. It’s quite significant…the reward pool is [less than million] and no-whale-voting experiment has ended…that’s why).

@whaleshares are simply worth it. The problem is though, that you have to come across a contest in which you can compete with the skill or knowledge you possess, which for me is rather hard. There is though no backfire!

@minnowsupport will cost you about 3x100% vote per day. For me that means currently 0,45 cents and for that I can gain about 2,2 dollars TWICE a day. I personally don’t vote with its power for myself much. I share the love, hoping that one day people will share it with me too:). Anyway the math is pretty easy right?

The new aspirant

Those projects have lately been joined by another well looking contender – the @minnowbooster

This article’s aim is to do the research solely about the loan of SP and not the other function of “buying up votes” (similar to @randowhale)

I was one of the luckier minnows, which was supported by a whale (I’m looking at you @vcelier), therefore I possess some amount of Steem with which I could buy that lone. The Steem is mainly for Steemfest 2 trip, but since the prize of Steem has gone down now (and I believe it will go up again) there is no need to exchange it for fiat right about now. If there was a way how to gain an interest from that amount it would be perfect right?

Well…never invest before you do your research. Since I have done mine, I will gladly share it with you guys so you know what you’re going into.

Source

The research

Anytime I’m thinking about and investment into any Blockchain, I speak first to my Blockchain guru @hr1. I have done the same this time and basically got a reply “do your research”. LOL. Well he has helped me to set it up, he always helps me…I had to tease him though. So here it is.

As far as we are concerned, the curation rewards grow linearly with the SP the account has. Therefore the formula used is following.

A = Your SP, B = The delegated SP from @minnowbooster, C = Current Curation reward

[(A+B)/A]xC

I happen to have 400 Steem, Let’s say I would invest it all.

Example of @minnowbooster: send 400 Steem with the memo '4', which covers payments of 100 Steem per week over 4 weeks and then receive 10 000 delegated SP for the 4 week term."

If you want to have the loan for 3 and less weeks the ratio is 1:65 (you pay one Steem and receive 65 SP for one week). If you want to have the loan for 4+ weeks, the ratio is 1:100.

So if I pay 400 Steem for 4 weeks, It would mean I payed 100 Steem per week and that would ultimately mean I would receive 10 000 SP for 4 weeks (because 100X100…This should be clear right?)

Back to the formula

[(A+B)/A]xC

[(416,312 + 10 000)/416,312]x C

To get to know the C I will use steemstats.com (long live @jesta), because the weekly curation reward on Steemit is not accurate enough. I will use my votes from Yesterday (they would be close to their final potential pay out by now).

Few minutes later

The result is 0,309 Steem per day. Now keep in mind that I have only used 20% of my power (the amount one has for the day). I did not pursue high reward posts! I support those that I think deserve it, I have voted for only like 3 high rewards posts, and the rest were mainly minnows.

Back to the formula

C = 0,309x7 = 2,163 [(416,312 + 10 000)/416,312]X 2,163 = 54,119

This means that for 100 Steem per week I would receive 54,119 in rewards. THAT IS ALMOST HALF OF THE VALUE LOST! After sharing my results with @hr1 he admitted that he would be losing too.

I understand that the result might be different for those that seek high rewards post more than anything. Truth is that neither I nor @hr1 is doing that, therefore we unsurprisingly had the same result. We both just support those that don’t receive much and those that we feel deserve higher rewards. He does it via bot and I do it manually. That way we cover both possible ways and using neither the service is worth it.

Conclusion and proclamation

Source

Careful! For those that profess the same strategy as we do this part of the project is a not worth it in its current beta state (no offence but math does not lie). Maybe I suck as a curator, but so do most of you fellow minnows :). Note that @hr1 is unlike me using much more daily power than I am and he still does not profit! If you do not want to pay your Steem in order to become a more valuable curator of not-high-rewards, do not use their services. I wanted to invest really hard because it seemed like a win-win situation, but as you can see it is not. If you are a bitch that only seeks high reward posts and are a reason why minnows struggle, I cannot be of any service to you. There is no way for me how to replicate your behaviour :).

I will regenerate my power, I will also power up to 500 SP so I finally have my slider and I will do an experiment, starting tomorrow. I will use much more than 20% of my power on more posts due to the slider. I will run this experiment for a day or two and then I will come back with the results. I will also look more deeply into their “pay for vote” service and compare it to @randowhale. See you soon guys!

What do you think about this research? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Let me know! If the review helped you, feel free to up vote and Resteem to spread awareness:)

https://steemitimages.com/DQmepuByrineEbHhenpyMDiN5WiyWVXqfUnbUFgeyKpKLgs/U5dscK5CsreseBirn9cbpc3KRzobNJS.gif

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