Are post payouts a little confusing at times? - YES
Yesterday I made a post about why you should NOT power up 100% to gain the maximum about of Steem Power per post. It seems that this was news to a lot of people. Since there were a lot of questions about it, I thought it would be best for me to make a video explaining some of it.
UNDERSTANDING CURRENT POST PAYOUTS
You may see that I inserted the word "current" in the title there. This is because post payouts fluctuate. Basically, there are three options for post payouts that the authors can select.
- 50/50 Payout (default)
- 100% Power Up
- Decline Payout
The 50/50 Payout setting pays out half of the post in Steem Power and the other half in STEEM, SBD, or a combination of both.
The 100% Power Up option pays out the entire portion in Steem Power.
The Decline Payout option prevents the author from receiving rewards.
Since the payout system takes into account the fluctuating value of STEEM, adjustments are made in the amount of STEEM and Steem Power that posts pay out. However, SBD (Steem Dollars) are treated by the system as if they were $1 USD each at all times. Currently SBD is valued at $2.00 USD even on Bittrex.
This means that if a post was going to pay the author $20, and they selected the 50/50 Payout option, half of the post would be paid out at 10 SBD. Those 10 SBD could then be traded for $20 USD, which means that the post would have actually paid out at $30 to the author, not $20.... For those trying to accumulate Steem Power, it would be better to select the 50/50 Payout, then trade the SBD for STEEM and power the STEEM up manually, since you would be getting more.
I go over a real life example in my post from yesterday if you are interested.
It can be a little confusing, so I do my best to cover more in the video to help you understand. Also, if the value of SBD dropped below 1 USD, then the 100% Power Up option would be better.