Gif from Giphy
Intro
So this is actually my second time writing this post since my first draft was deleteted when I clicked that god forsaken GIF button.
Anyway, what is a slow powerup?
A slow power up is where you use your STEEM/SBD more wisely than just outright powering it up. This guide shows you how to got the most out of your money (if you're willing to put in the time).
When you have steem sitting around in your wallet, it is tempting to either power it up, or send it to Bittrex and sell it, right? But doing either of those things, you are not gaining anything, you're just transferring it to something else. This guide will present to you the ways in which you can get SP while not blowing your initial earnings/investment all at once. This guide is especially helpful for plankton, minnows and people who have spare/inactive accounts.
It's also worth noting that this guide isn't just for newbies but for anyone considering investing in the steemit platform or who has a fair bid of SBD sitting around from post rewards.
The cardinal rule - sell your spare upvotes
Every minute that your voting power is at 100%, you are missing out on free money.
When you sell your upvotes, you get money equal to half of your upvote every 2.4 hours + ~25% curation reward meaning you're always getting income and your account is always growing - even if you haven't touched your account in months, it'll still be sat there generating a small amount of profit for you, which could one day become worth a lot.
I personally use smartsteem to buy and sell my upvotes:
Slow power up by posting high quality, regular content and buying upvotes
I know there is a stigma against buying votes, some say it's not organic, or it's not fair on people who put loads of effort into their posts and don't buy votes - but life isn't fair; you have to think about this economically, as it is your investment, and you buying + holding these currencies increases the value for everyone else.
This method best suits:
- Regular posters of quality content
- Small starting investment
| Powering up straight away | Buying upvotes for quality posts |
|---|---|
| 100% of investment goes to Steem Power (no gain) | 100% of vote goes to SP + 100% goes to SBD rewards (profit) |
| Happens instantly | Takes up to 7 days for post payout |
| Can power up unlimited amount | Limited by number of vote sellers and size of votes |
| No posting/content required | Requires you to post high quality content regularly |
The three main vote selling services right now are 
Don't get vote selling services confused with bid bots which usually don't make you a profit, and often make you a loss. The advantage to bid bots is that you can usually place a much higher bid (usually around 20 SBD).
Doing it this way also means your post gets that little boost that makes it stand out a little bit more and attract more viewers. If the post is of a great enough quality, you'll also attract more upvotes and resteems from other users.
Another way to power up slowly is to get signed on to a service like 
Slow powerup by leasing steem power delegations and selling upvotes
So in this method we go back to the cardinal rule again - sell upvotes.
Best suited to users who:
- Aren't very active on the platform/have a spare account and would rather make a passive income
- Have a larger starting investment
This method is slightly less effective but works way better with high rollers and accounts who don't post/curate/vote as much. I have a second account which I don't use for anything other than this but it can be done with your main account too.
You start off by selling your SBD/STEEM on blocktrades for a 90 day delegation or you can try to get a better deal from minnowbooster.
Then you start selling your upvotes with smartsteem as mentioned in 'cardinal rule'. You'll get paid half of what your vote is worth every 2.4 hours and you'll get a curation reward of ~25% which is all SP, (that's how you power up).
When you have about 1 SBD in your smartsteem account, cash out and buy another 90 day delegation. Keep doing this for as long as you can. Eventually, your SP will grow to fill the loss you make from diminishing SBD. The bonus of this method is that you can upvote posts and comments you like inculding your own. A larger starting capital works way better with this method as every SBD gets you roughly 9 SP.
A good idea would be to sell loads of votes on the last day of your delegation to maximize profits, you'd do this by lowering this slider to ~50% (=25 votes) and resetting to 100% when the large delegation is over:
