I'm lucky enough to be in a position with my current witness ranking coupled with higher HIVE prices currently to be operating in a way where all of my HIVE centric bills are actually at the end of the day paid for by the HIVE network itself, in the form of the ~38 Hive Power that I earn daily through creating HIVE blocks in position #38 in the witness ranking. as it sits my Witness Pay works out to around ~1.2 HP* times 32 Blocks created a day for a total around ~38.4 HP put into my account a day. However this is paid as HP as noted and needs to be powered down before I can access the value of the wealth paid for running a Witness Node in support of network decentralization.
( * Note that this ~1.2 HP amount fluctuates with the HIVE Price somewhat )
As it sits between my one smaller HIVE Witness Node ($50 a Month - Rent) and my larger Dedicated Web Server ($80 a Month - Rent to Own) come out to around $130 USD per Month before any deductions due to referrals or what have you. This month I was lucky enough to accrue ~$7 USD worth of savings through my referral links so my bill was just over $120 USD this month. Not Bad!
At current HIVE prices and using rough calculations I'm able to calculate the "wage" my witness server earns a month after covering witness / development hardware expenses required:
1.209 HIVE POWER - Current Backup Witness Block Reward ( This Amount Fluctuates with HIVE Price )
x ( Multiplied By )
32 HIVE Blocks - Current Value of HIVE Blocks Created a Day by @KLYE
= ( Equals )
38.688 HIVE POWER a Day Earnings ( Will Further Calculate this out Below )
If we want to see how much that is Daily, in $USD, we do the following:
38.688 HIVE POWER ( Hive Power Paid to Witness Daily )
x ( Multiplied By )
$0.637 USD ( Current HIVE / USD Price )
= ( Equals )
~$24.64 USD a Day ( Note This Cannot Be Transferred or Spent Until Powered Down )
If we want to scale that up to a Monthly "Income" Projection:
~$24.64 USD / 38.688 HIVE POWER a Day ( Paid to Witness Daily )
x ( Multiplied By )
30 ( Days in a Month )
= ( Equals )
~$739.2 USD / 1160.64 HIVE POWER a Month ( Paid to Witness Monthly )
Now to Deduct the Monthly Server Bills Required to Support Witness Rank:
$739.20 USD / 1160.64 HIVE
- ( Subtract )
$132.46 USD / 191.115 HIVE
= ( Equals )
$606.74 USD / 969.525 HIVE Monthly Revenue Awarded by HIVE Witness Income!
As you can see above, at Witness rank #38 we're left with a little over $600 in Staked HIVE Revenue, Under the Assumption you've only Powered Down and Sold Enough HIVE to Cover Strictly the Server Bills. Some Witnesses own Businesses and can foot Their Bills through That Income.
Now for the Obligatory "Woe is The Poor Peasant" Bit..
Now while $600 USD "profit" or "revenue" a month for a ~$130 USD investment and what effectively most of the time boils down to passive income generation isn't a horrible deal when taken at face value, and is effectively something I'll always be grateful for, as it at the very least pays for my hardware and provides a sort of minimum wage tier income, it doesn't begin to accurately reflect nor even remotely compensate or pay for the supporting research & development hours that are poured into the applications residing upon the servers.. Not even in the slightest sense of the term..
Let's Do a Quick Hypothetical "Real-World" Comparison
Could certainly move elsewhere and turn my focus to far more financially lucrative uses of my time, but I build and innovate not driven by money or profit, but rather in the pursuit of bringing better functionality and value to all those crazy enough to stick with the community through all this. While it serves to greatly enrich those with the most stake I view that only as a side effect to enriching the entire community as a whole. That is the drive behind my innovation and application developing.
This doesn't really even begin to touch on the time spent going between the various levels / factions / castes that regardless of your view or opinion, very much exist within of our HIVE branded online society, seeking to ensure the greater community is heard over the stake based decision making power of the few, as this is a service I'll gladly always perform free of charge out of want to have the will of the community be the driving force behind decisions, not money or power or flexes.
Some appreciate this more than others and while I don't wake up intending to harass, put people on the spot or make myself look like an idiot, sometimes that is how it goes. I hold no grudges.
What I need at the end of the day is more support, votes, comments, witness votes, proposal votes, spreading of the good word, help testing, help monitoring and just more appreciation from all the various levels of stake holder here on HIVE, regardless of personal feelings or past indiscretions.
A lot of what I need as a developer can be provided with no money out of pocket..
It simply takes the votes of a select few, or a hefty many to make it happen
Because Privacy and Security Over-Rule All
If you're like me and do development work, would like to run a HIVE Witness Node for fun or profit or just care about your web hosting security and privacy, check out my favourite company Privex.io.
They have all sorts of hosting options down to the smallest $0.99 a month virtual servers all the way up to the most modern powerful dedicated servers located throughout the world. Use the link above or below to order a server and you'll help offset my monthly hardware costs due to the referral. <3
I use privex.io because of their no compliance with foreign or domestic governments policy and the fact their staff are quick on the customer service support and highly knowledgeable.
Bonus Info For Actual Readers!
Most of the code is already there to facilitate this, just need to modify it some to unlock what has been a more than often requested feature for this upcoming service.. Should be damn good!
Vote KLYE for Witness, Every Single Vote Helps, Thanks for the Support!
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Looking for an Affordable, Secure & Reliable Server Host for Your Witness Server or Other Web Related Projects?
Check out Privex.io!