If you’ve been around Steemit any period of time you have noticed people using names like Plankton, Minnow, Dolphin, Orca and Whale. But what doe these levels mean?
The levels give you a quick idea of how much influence or power the users have on the Steemit Platform.
On the Steemit Platform the size of your investment in a semi-liquid form of Steem called Steem Power determines how much influence or power you have on the Steem platform.
On the Steemit Platform Power means money, which tells you how much your upvotes are worth in Steem. So the more Steem Power you have, the more Steem your vote is worth.
For example, a Plankton with 100 Steem Power has a upvote worth 0.01 Steemit Token Units. While a Minnow with 1000 Steem Power has an upvote worth 0.10 Steemit Token Units, and a Dolphin with 10,000 Steem Power has an upvote worth 1.00 Steem.
At first glance it seems that Steem Power determines your sea creature rank on the Steemit Platform, but that’s only partially right. It appears that your rank is actually based on a term called “vests”. I read an article by a software developer who stated that the source code for Steemit dictated the levels and they were as follows:
Plankton = up to 1 million VESTS
Minnow = >1 to 10 million VESTS
Dolphin = >10 to 100 million VESTS
Orca = >100 to 1,000 million VESTS
Whale = >1,000 million VESTS
So how do we find out how many million vests we have?
You can check it by going to www.steemd.com or going to http://www.steemworld.org
You can also check it by going to http://www.steemitboard.com.
The reason your partially right is because Steem Power equals Vests, but it’s not a one to one relationship. According to the author the source code 489.964 Steem Power equals 1,000,000.00 Vests.
So based on this understanding the source code says:
Plankton = 0 to 489.964 Steem Power
Minnow = 490 to 4,899 Steem Power
Dolphin = 4,900 to 48,996 Steem Power
Orca = 48,997 to 489,973 Steem Power
Whale = 489,974 Steem Power and above
What most people have come to understand is a rounded up version:
Plankton = less then 500 Steem Power
Minnow = at least 500 but less then 5000 Steem Power
Dolphin = at least 5000 but less then 50,000 Steem Power
Orca = at least 50,000 but less the 500,000 Steem Power
Whale =at least 500,000 Steem Power and above
So now you know, keep Steeming!
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