Let Curation Rewards Be Your Guide

Before writing this post, I must confess that I do not have any money. So, I cannot take my own advice.

Through my years on SteemIt, I have often asked the question how much STEEM should a new account buy?

The minimum payout for a SteemIt post is $0.02. If a post fails to achieve $0.02, the rewards are wiped away as dust. NOTE, the dollar value of an upvote changes according to one's STEEM POWER, the vote weight, one's VOTE POWER and the price of STEEM.

I am not a popular writer; so my posts rarely break the $0.02 barrier. I figured that, if I really wanted to participate on SteemIt, I would need enough SP to sweep the dust on my account.

I looked up at the upvote calculator on Steem Now. It currently lists the price of STEEM at $0.26. It appears that I would need 2800 SP for my upvote to be worth $0.02. That would be $728. I don't have that kind of money.

One big problem with the upvote calculator is that the dollar value of the upvote changes with the price of STEEM. If I bought $728 worth of STEEM POWER and the price fell, then I would fall below my goal of having a vote value worth $0.02 STEEM.

Recently, I've been looking at the curation rewards page for my account. I have 64 SP in my account. I notice that the minimum curation reward payout is 0.001. The curation reward payout depends upon one's SP, one's upvote percent and when one upvotes. I notice that, with 64 SP, I seem to get a curation reward for about 1 in 5 upvotes.

I've been looking at other accounts. It appears that accounts get 0.001 SP in curation rewards for every 100 SP in their account. You can confirm this by looking at the wallets of different accounts and checking their STEEM POWER against their curation rewards page. Buying 100 SP is reasonable. 100 SP at $0.26 is $26.00.

I would have to buy it on credit.

One should never buy crypto on credit. So, yes, I am not following my own advise.

Anyway, while it is difficult for newbies to break the $0.02 minimum payout with their posts. It is possible for newbs to get curation rewards if they start their account with 100 SP.

Showing Post Rewards to Three Digits

There are several sites which started as hard forks from Steem. Many of these sites show the curation rewards to three digits. This feature is extremely helpful as it provides guidance for the amount of coins one should buy to participate on the platform.

The Picture

I snapped a photo of a backlit ornamental poppy growing in the garden.