For sure you noticed this short time ago:
The posts of @randowhale and @grumpycat were literally right next to each other in the trends.
The one is an upvote-bot. The other his enemy.
@grumpycat announced in his post an upcoming attack against the upvote-bots like @upme. If the bots are still accepting requests for purchasing votes at posts older than 84h hours, they will have to expect randomly flagging.
Additionally there should be a certificate for bots acting within the rules, the ‘GrupyCompliantBadge’.
The post has already a value of 555.88 $. Much money because the post got attention thanks to the use of upvoting-bots.
But @grumpycat could save money by voting for himself since the account owns lots of Steem Power. Steem Power with a value of around 1.8 million USD.
Following I want to showcase the finacial structur of @grumpycat, how there is already a profit of around 17.000 $ and pointing out why @grumpycat is probably going to retreat from Steemit.
The whole system bases on @checkthisout. This account was created as @grumpycat in november
Shortly after the registration of @checkthisout there were the first money transfers coming from bittrex, 212,109.647 STEEM.
With the first post it is the beginning of printing money:
This very informative post has given much thinking to some people because it was not just this post. The complete comments were spammed to generate as much money as possible.
Already at this time @grumpycat played a big role in this story because before the post @checkthisout sent 211,980 STEEM to @grumpycat who used this together with 288,020.330 STEEM from bittrex to change it into 500,000.330 STEEM Power.
With this STEEM Power they could generate high valued upvotes such that @checkthisout received high Author Rewards and @grumpycat high Curation Rewards.
Through this upvotes @checkthisout got 556,794 STEEM Power and 1,743.413 SBD.
At this point the upvote-bots are coming into the game. In a complete opposite to the post bots were extremly used to get into the trends.
From @checkthisout there were money transfers with a value of 182.112 SBD to @upme, @appreciator, @booster and @buildawhale.
With this bots upvotes with a value of around 380$ were generated, more than ⅔ of all income through the post.
But the makers of @grumpycat are not loosing money, they make profit.
With investions of in total 600,129.967 STEEM, around 1,84 million USD, they already gained 1,562.006 SBD and 1,252.04 STEEM which makes around 17,000 $.
From their profit they payed back 1,561.301 SBD to bittrex up to now.
Also they started to power down 601,291.659 STEEM Power of @grumpycat so that the upvote has nearly no value after that.
I personally think that this is going to get send back to bittrex after they got their STEEM.
Concluding you could say that @grumpycat is a good example of fighting activ against the upvote-bots. The basic idea is completely right and should be supported. Also I see the importance of the project for its makers because they invested this high sums.
But on the other side I see the exploitation of the reward pool through upvotes for spam comments. The profit for this short time is remarkable. And I see a Power Down action which I connect to a money transfer of the STEEM from @grumpycat to bittrex. This capital should probably get away from Steemit in the future.
However @grumpycat is going to develop, I am tensed.
I am glad if I could get your opinion to this topic after this analysis of the financial structure and your attitude towards bots at Steemit in the comments.
EDIT:
After finishing this post in advance there was a downvote on the post of @grumpycat from @ranchorelaxo.
This account holds much STEEM Power generated through money transfers from blocktrades.
Thanks to this action the post of @grumpycat has only a value of around 380$ left.
Greets Naturicia