Thoughts on Using @OCDB and Why I Will Continue to Do So

Just like I did almost a year ago, I wanted to review my latest experience of using a bot. This time, I will review a special type of bid bot called Hive account@ocdb which is made to benefit the community to both promote and profit from the bid process as well as become a contributor to a broader community that delegates for a return on investment. The close ties to Hive account@ocd which add value with the active curation is another way the community gathers and provides ways to add value and promote active engagement across the ecosystem.

I have been reading about the community for months and had been hesitant as I have come to believe that anything too good to be true probably is. However, after reading other reviews and no actually experimenting with the process, I can say that this is a great way for Steemians to add value to their content and the supporters they atttact to the ecosystem. I will avoid going into the discussion on bid bots in general and instead focus on why I believe it is a great tool for many and why (and how) I will continue to use it.

Unlike a bid bot, the Hive account@ocdb bot will provide you an upvote that will provide a 10% return on your transfer all things being equal. Important to note that it is given the amount received at the value of the currency transferred at that point in time. Like many concepts in cryptocurrency, prices are volatile and you can never guarantee the price wil be what you expect when exchanging in a future period of time. However, the days of trying to game the bots to profit on bids is essentially over as there are no formal bids here; your vote will be put on a queue which is displayed on the website with the expected remaining time for the upvote. This timing is due to the fact that the bot only votes when it reaching 100% of its Voting Power. However, this is a part of what adds value as not only does it provide transparency regarding expectations, but it also provides the opportunity for curators to front-run votes of a bot that could provide returns in itself.

I was fortunate enough to be whitelisted and become part of this community recently so please feel free to add or provide feedback if I have left anything out of am missing anything in any part of this post as I go into some of the interesting metrics of the results. I used the great website by Hive account@steemchiller steemworld.org for my figures presented below.

I truly believe that content should be promoted when it is content that is informational and/or adds some type of value to the ecosystem. I chose to use my weekly #introduceyourself post as my guinea pig for this experiment as I believe that any initiative to motivate and promote new users is a great one to add long term value to the community. It has been a cornerstone of my content for over 30 weeks and has provided me with great engagement from the community over time. I decided to send 20 Steem for the promotion which at the time was value at approximately $8.37. It immediately went to the queue where it would be upvoted about 22 hours later.

As seen, the driver of the value of the post was the upvote from Hive account@ocdb with an upvote value of $10.47. This is materially more than the $8.37 (20 Steem) transferred as the bot takes the payout of curators into consideration which approximately 25% of the payout. This is where I think this becomes a great community project as it is an opportunity for supporters to get more value for their support! I honestly did not even calculate my Return as the thought from my side is how this rewards my supporters whom have consistently been providing motivation for me to remain consistent. That is what I would like to focus on here.

The prior week’s post is what I would consider a normal payout for this weekly content I have been consistently engaging with for months. There was no significant upvotes provided so it was a great selection to compare with the Hive account@ocdb promoted post the following week. While results will always vary considering the algorithm of the protocol due to timing, I think the comparisons will demonstrate the value added of the promotion. While the upvote from Hive account@ocdb is not the only variance, most of these upvotes have been consistent for me as of late. I want to focus the comparison on two curators to highlight the difference they get from the promotion.

I will start with Hive account@abh12345 which is an active curator whom I have been luckily to cross paths with many times. He voted both posts with the same value of $0.04. However, his curation reward measures in SP went from 0.039 to 0.111 which is a substantial increase for no changes in effort. When I use approximate payout value based on estimated Steem prices at payout, that provided Hive account@abh12345 an increase in return as well. The return on the $0.04 vote was 42% but went to 94% the week of the promotion! He seems to be a curation genius!

Another user I want to highlight is Hive account@curatorhulk which I have been lucky enough to get support from recently. His votes slightly varied week over week as it went from $0.83 to $0.75. However, the curation reward also benefited from then promotion as it went from 0.487 SP to 1.064 SP. This represented a consistent increase in returns for the curators from 25% to 48%. However, interestingly the return was less than the genius Hive account@abh12345. I believe this may be due to the timing of the votes but ot is interesting as it could lead to questions regarding thr effectiveness of stake versus timing and proof that curation is actually working (no intention to stir a debate).

It seems that the experiment that was originally put in mind by Hive account@revisedsociology has been successful in that using the Hive account@ocdb bot proves to be a great way to incentivize my supporters. The question would then be, what is in it for me? I believe that the profit being guaranteed is good but what I enjoy seeing is that I can use my liquid Steem and SBD to further grow my Steem Power by gaining a higher margin by investing in the vote. So instead of converting and powering up, liquid Steem and SBD can be used to get an additional 10% for powering up. With the benefit extending to supporters, it is a great situation for all those involved!

This is how I get to my thought of using it more consistently in the future. I have seen that more users on the whitelist are using it often which is a great sign for the community. My thought is to use it when I have extra liquid Steem or SBD for posts I believe add value to the ecosystem. In addition, I will disclose on the post when I will use it in order for curators to benefit from the increased rewards possible as demonstrated. This could be one of the missing tools I have been waiting for to add more efficiency to my building of Steem Power without taking away from others. Look forward to future thoughts and feedback! Thanks!