What's Happening? Is something wrong?!?!
Keep calm...nothing is wrong. While I understand the concern..it's really quite normal.
Ok, so now that you've calmed down a bit (I hope) lets cover a bit of what is going on with your post payouts. When we're done, you'll start letting things like this just roll off you without any stress.
Q: Am I being flagged or something?
This is always the first thought people have when they see their post payouts going down. While it's possible (you can find out if this is the case in THIS POST, 99.99% of the time flags have nothing to do with it.
Q: Sooo...what's going on then? Why are my payouts going down?
Let's first back up just a little bit. You see, each day there is new Steem being printed and placed into a reward pool for post and comment authors. (This is where the so-called money comes from.) This fixed amount is then given away and who proportionally gets what is determined by votes. Those with more Steem Power thus has more effect.
Effect of Steem and Bitcoin price compared to the US Dollar
The BIGGEST reason is because the price of Steem fell about 20% in the last day or so (along with most crypto.) It's already bounced back about half of that!
So why does any of this matter?
You see, what you are ACTUALLY receiving is STEEM...NOT DOLLARS! That dollar amount you are seeing is based off the current price of Steem, relative to Bitcoin, relative to the US dollar. So if the price of Steem goes down, or the price of Bitcoin goes down...that Steem that was distributed to you is worth less. Even though you technically have the SAME AMOUNT OF STEEM.
So don't panic, this really is normal. Just as often your payouts go UP when the Steem (and Bitcoin) price rises. However, nobody really thinks anything of this outside of GOODY!! These ups and downs balance out over time.
Q: Wait a minute..you just said the price has gone back up somewhat..yet I'm not seeing my payout rise.
Our payouts don't look at the instantaneous price of Steem, instead it uses a 3.5 day AVERAGE price. So this means that the more recent gains represent a small portion of this 3.5 day average. The recent gains just aren't strongly reflecting yet since it's been a short period of time.
As long as the Steem price stays here (or ideally keeps going up) you'll slowly see your post payouts rise again too.
Q: Is there anything else that makes my payout change?
Like I mentioned above...votes really aren't giving money directly...instead it's distributing portions of the daily reward pool. After you post earned some money however, people STILL KEEP VOTING. So those votes that allotted you the earnings, become smaller compared to ALL the votes cast. While this usually isn't as drastic an effect of say a 20% dip in Steem price, you will likely see this happen.
Remember that ALL of my guide posts are eligible to be added as entries to the Steem Center Wiki or Operation Translation.
Click here to find out how these can earn you Steem!!
Feel free to ask me anything. I'm here to Help!
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