Looks like the problem might be solved?
Last week, I posted A puzzle: What's going on here?, wondering why rewards had appeared to plummet on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday last week. @moecki determined that it appeared to be a problem with steemdb.io.
Well, today, it looks like the rewards are climbing back up again.
I think it's still too soon to know for sure, but I'm guessing that the problem might be corrected. We'll have to check back tomorrow.
Guess we're not going to get those missing days back, though...
It's a very interesting situation. One more thing occurred to me. Is the prize pool affected by the steem price? As the Steem price increases, the prize pool increases, and when the Steem price decreases, the prize pool decreases.
It seems that the prize pool was relatively stable for the whole time. Apparently, the web site where I get the data was just reporting it incorrectly for some reason.
On the general question, I'm not sure what factors contribute to the size of the prize pool. I suppose the price feed from the witnesses might be one of the factors, but I've never noticed a connection.
If we get to where SBDs are printing, I think that the price would almost certainly impact the number of SBDs in the pool.
That means the problem was in the steemdb.io. Its good news that the problem is solved. Thanks the authority. Also thank you for your information.