Hi friends!
You may have realised I've started voting with a lower percentage of my voting power. But don't worry. The reason for that is... I've recently doubled up on my Steem Power lease. 😋
A month ago, I was very sceptical of buying "Steem Power Delegation," instead of directly buying Steem. I had seen a few people calling BlockTrades a scam, even!!! 😲
In the end, I decided to take the risk and I spent 0.25 ETH to get 490.722 Steem Power for 90 days. Had I bought Steem instead, I would have get 55.23 Steem Power for the same 0.25 ETH.
Now, you might be asking: What's the advantage of Buying Delegation?
There are at least 3 advantages I see.
1) Return on Investment
After a quick math, I knew I needed to make at least 4.30 Steem per week, to reach the break even point with this investment.
However, after 45 days, I've realised I was, in fact, getting my return back... and then some. And I didn't even needed to upvote all of my own comments, like many people do. (Yes, I upvote my own posts. I wouldn't be giving them visibility, if I left them waiting with $0.00 of rewards. Right?)
I might upvote one or two of my own comments, too... but I only do it when I go to sleep and my Voting Power is above 92%. That is quite rare, though.
Halfway through my delegation period, I made an average of 4.04 SP + 3.89 SBD per week. Nearly two times above my break even point.
2) Boost Your Account Visibility
As soon as you start voting on other people's posts with a higher value, it's only natural that those authors will feel appreciated and will retribute your gesture. (I know I do.)
So, if you have more Voting Power, your account will grow faster, the people who you interact with will also grow faster, yours and their returns will increase... and in the end, everybody wins.
You'll also realise people will be more willing to upvote on your post when it appears on SteemIt with a voting power of $0.05 (or more...) than they are willing to upvote any new posts left with $0.00 of rewards.
3) Vote a Lot More Times per Day
As soon as you have a decent amount of Steem Power (above 500 SP), you can use the Voting Slider.
This effectively allows you to control your voting power a lot better... and let you give more rewards for the content you like the most.
You can also vote a lot more times per day, without depleting your Voting Power completely.
Conclusion
I believe that, as long as we post a few times per week and maintain a certain level of quality, it's perfectly possible to recover any Steem Power delegated through BlockTrades (https://blocktrades.us)
Final Note
Using BlockTrades is easy peasy. You don't even need to Register in their site. Just go there, insert your username from Steem, define how much you want to spend... and then click "Get a new Deposit Address".
A new ETH Address will be created and you can send your ETH to that Address from anywhere (Your own Ether Wallet or an Exchange.)
If you post regularly, this is an excellent investment, in my opinion.
My Personal Goal:
As long as I can get a return on my investment, I'll be using Delegation to maintain my voting Power above 500 SP, until I achieve 500 SP of my own.
With so much good content around, I don't know how you guys can get by without the Voting Slider. 😝
I hope you find this article useful. Please comment. Don't be afraid to leave your opinions and suggestions.
