Look up my username on gridcoinstats about 6 months ago, you'll see how this can affect. At my highest point of holding I only ever had around 10k in my balance, and to me as a casual researcher, that was a lot, I have less now, my own choice, sure, but even at 10k balance I was staking 150 GRC at a shot. That simply is not happening now, and will not be happening in the future as things stand and I understood Hive account@dutch's explanation correctly.
I don't consider myself a casual researcher now, as I routinely remain in the top 200's in some projects and have a higher "rank" in them thatn some names I recognize from here, yet, I never stake, or stake at terms longer than a week. V8 isn't active yet, it's gonna be a rough change to see.