Regarding Backup Witnesses & Witness Pay
Considering the fact that Steem price is on a free fall courtesy BTC and whatnot, I wonder if we'll loose some low-ranking witnesses if the prices bottom out. A decentralised blockchain such as Steem should have a greater number of witnesses running the blockchain should it not?
Top 20 Witnesses make an approximate 8000 Steem Power per month. This is quite incredible considering atleast 60%-65% of the top witnesses don't run a full RPC node. A regular witness node is not too expensive to run nor complicated. Needless to say top 20 positions are the most coveted ranking spots as they are the most profitable no matter how you look at it.
Does anyone have any conclusive data on witness pay structure for backup witnesses based on their ranking from 21 spot and downwards from there?
The ones at the bottom of the witness list might find it harder to run their nodes on good hardware should Steem price fall well below $1. I'm not sure of the hardware and relative costs but they might not break even on the running cost for sure.
I hope we don't get there but if we do it would be interesting to see it's effects on backup witnesses given the huge disparity in the blocks signed per day by top 20 vs the rest.
After running my witness without a hiccup for 5 months it's clear that you could hypothetically get to the top 20 on hardware costing couple of hundred dollars or less per month if you had the votes backing you, supposing you run your witness reliably which is largely the only requirement most of the time.
Anyhow, I'll just put this out here incase you were wondering.
My witness node "@firepower" currently signs 14 to 15 blocks per day at my current ranking of 55. I'm running it on excellent hardware. There's also a seed node and a backup in case of a failover but my witness has been running stable without any blocks missed since mid-January.
You can view my witness post to learn more about my witness campaign.
You can check https://steemian.info/witnesses for more info on witnesses.
You may also support my witness by voting for it on https://steemit.com/~witnesses. You will need to type in the witness name and you'll also need to be signed in with your active or master key to confirm the vote.
Thanks to all who continue to support my witness currently.
If you like my work kindly resteem it to your friends. You may also continue reading my recent posts which might interest you:
- Let's Watch This Fun Video From International Steem Meetup #1—Malaysia
- Why You Should Vote For @firepower As Witness—Witness Campaign Post From India!
- Steem.Chat Contest #31
A valid concern that was answered in my latest post thanks to your suggestion.
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@drakos/witness-block-production-at-steemian-info
Interesting, I have been wondering about how much it costs to be a witness vs the returns. Sounds like it is not a great idea at current STEEM prices.
For top 20 it's 8000x$1.4=11200USD approx at current market rate of Steem. Can't say what it's like at the bottom of the list as im unsure of the hardware anyone else is running. I knew someone who used to run a node reliably at less than $20 a month lol. He's disabled the witness since then afaik.
that actually sounds pretty great, especially since it has been a whole lot higher than $1.4 in the past. is there like a tutorial or a guide for setting up one of these nodes for the STEEM blockchain for dummies?
Not sure about a tutorial for dummies but here's one: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@bitcalm/how-to-become-a-witness
and
https://steemkr.com/witness-category/@timcliff/steps-for-setting-up-a-witness-node-the-manual-way
very cool, thank you!
don't even know what a witness is...
I've linked it in the post, right below the image as it's source.
Thanks; I did witness one high up guy but stopped it because I didn't know what it was all about, and decided to not do any more until I know more about it...
Thanks for the information
For the entire steem to run on just 21 witness seems more like a bad idea and points to centralization. the algorithm should be modified to include more witness , then only more people would participate. Incumbent always have an advantage due to voter apathy. With respect to running cost , steem used to be 10 cents a year ago, so why would this be a problem even if steem price fall to 20 cents!!!
True.
With respect to costs, when steem was 10 cents, top witnesses made 1380SP per day due to the high inflation at the time. Which was changed at a later HF.
If your server cost was $200 a month for example, you'll need to make enough blocks to cover that cost and if you need to withdraw that SP to pay for it you'll need to wait a while to be able to power down and withdraw. So it's not great for lower ranking witnesses to be running a server at lower prices.
Usually, you need around rank 85 or higher to break even. Perhaps a little higher now that the price dropped even more.
I see.
If the price of steem drops below $ 1 I will buy and hold them, I believe in steemit's platform.
Come on.... keep yer chins up!
https://steemit.com/blog/@lucylin/hitler-s-feeling-the-steem-price-drop-just-like-the-rest-of-us
Here is a post that explains how much witnesses make per block. (Note, it was written back when there were 19 top witnesses and 1 miner, so just change the 1 miner to a top 20 witness, and all the numbers still work.)
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@timcliff/til-how-much-witnesses-and-miners-make-per-block
It seems to me that Steemit creators are taking an awful huge cut at 15% of new currency. Instead of the 15% cut it should be more like 10% and the remaining 5% should be added to the 10% cut for Witnesses. Of that 5%, the majority should go to those that are not in the top 20 to keep the others afloat. Seems like Steemit Inc doesn't want to do much to promote Steemit. If they are going to leave it up to the witnesses, then the witnesses should get paid more.