Burning HELIOS can be valuable
But use it wisely
If you haven't checked out the helios.surf website you really should. It does everything I wanted to do with the 
Primarily you can burn HELIOS to do three things:
- You can burn to UPVOTE posts
- You can burn to CREATE accounts
- You can burn to DOWNVOTE posts
I doubt I'll be downvoting anything but being able to create accounts cheaply and get upvotes is really useful. The
But think before you burn!
The 
Then there is the math behind burning tokens 😄
I just wouldn't be me if I didn't do the math :)
Buy HELIOS or Delegate for it?
To my knowledge there are three ways to get HELIOS tokens. How much you pay for them determines whether burning them for upvotes is worthwhile or not. Let me walk you through things. The three ways to get HELIOS are:
Buy HELIOS from Hive-Engine. (tomorrow's post)
Be a top 100(ish) holder of HELIOS tokens to get more tokens. (day after tomorrow post)
But is it economical to delegate, hold or buy?
I've looked at it and I believe it is worthwhile. However if buying them its important to look at the actual purchase price because there is a huge spread difference between BUY and SELL much of the time. Let me break it down and look at each individually, starting with DELEGATING for today's post.
Delegate to
Let's start with a little table to see how valuable burning HELIOS is:
| HELIOS burnt | Upvote % | Upvote Value | Upvote value to poster | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.5 | 10% | 0.18 | 0.09 | Guessing on # burnt |
| 20 | 55% | 1.042 | 0.52 | Burnt 20 to test |
| 34.6 | 100% | 1.865 | 0.932 | Guessing on # burnt |
| 1 | 2.9%?? | 0.052 | 0.026 | Extrapolating/Guess |
As a fun way to verify I burnt 1 HELIOS token to upvote a post by
And the result was .... 0.053
But why do I care how much I get per HELIOS burnt? Well, I delegated to
Received from helios.rewards8.213 HELIOS 12 hours ago Congratulations, You earned 20.00% delegators reward. Minimum Price Cap: 0.109. Thank you!
As you can see delegating 2400 HP to the voter gets a return can give up to 8 HELIOS daily. Yes I know it varies day by day but I just used the most recent number as an example.
Burn 8 HELIOS and.... looking the chart above... and doing some math.....
(0.026 HBD/HELIOS x 8 Helios = 0.208HBD)
$0.208 HBD in value
Converting HBD to HIVE
(0.208HBD / 0.064 HIVE/HBD) = 3.21 HIVE
3.21 HIVE in Value
Is that a good return?
The math: (3.21 daily *365 days/year) = 1109 Hive / 2400 HP * 100% = 48.8%
48.8% return annually
Hmm... That is kind of crazy return. Not entirely sure how that will play out in the long run but for now its a fun number to look at.
But there is more!
Using HELIOS to upvote great posts by other people stretches your HP so much further than voting for them yourself. It's great for showing appreciation for good posts but burning HELIOS doesn't give you any curation rewards yourself.
Received from helios.delegator6.227 HIVE 33 minutes ago Congratulations, You're Ranked 27 & You Earned 6.227 For Delegating 2401.552 HP (APR≈13.48%)
They did the math for me and guess what?
13.48% return in Hive
...and it is LIQUID hive. If you curate yourself you get HP .. just as valuable of course but not as flexible.
To those who keep their HP for voting
I once asked 
However, I see she now has about 4885 HP. An upvote gives a value of maybe 0.01 HBD with that much HP. It isn't dust and it will make sure the person gets a reward but it is pretty tiny. It is kind of nice using the helios.voter to make a more meaningful value contribution to the poster and a comment to say "I called in the voter and think your post was awesome". Still, that is just me.
TL:DR
Delegating to the helios.voter gives a weekly HIVE payout that is quite valuable for the person delegating the HP. Over 13% with today's numbers. It also gives HELIOS tokens which can be burnt to give meaningful upvotes to those people who write good articles.
I think it is an overlooked value on Hive well worth utilizing.
...And thanks for taking the time to look at the article. I know it was number heavy but sometimes you need to run the numbers to see the value :)