Can we use post payouts as an indicator of the health of the system?
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I have analysed posting activity and looked at it through several different lenses. Posting frequency is an important way to view the activity on the Steem Blockchain. In this series we looked at how this is distributed across individual accounts, automated accounts, accounts of different durations and I will begin producing reports to provide this snapshot on a regular basis.
Post Payouts
Everyone is interested at some level in payouts. After-all Steemit is not Steemit without Steem.
The aggregate size of post payouts is driven mainly by the Steem Price, with the individual distribution being driven by voting.
I would propose that by examining Post Payouts we get more of a view of the health of activity on the Steem Blockchain, rather than quality or growth of activity. Post Payouts in aggregate are driven by the Steem price so the key factor to analyse here is how activity is distributed. Are rewards being distributed to a wide audience or to a select few?
The two key statistics I will examine in this post are:
- How much is paid out?
- How is it distributed?
Total payouts per day (Oct - Dec)
This first graph gives an overview of the total payouts per day on posts (excluding comments) in the last 3 months of 2017, with the units displayed in Steem Dollars (SBD).
In this period the rise in the price of Steem drove a big increase in the aggregate payouts but the story doesn't end there. Something very unusual happened at the end of 2017.
The SBD Drama
From 1st of November there was a bonanza for post payouts due to the price differential of Steem Dollars (SBD) and US Dollars (USD). The following graph represents approximate ranges of payouts, expressed in USD values.
Not everyone chose the 50 50 option for payouts and there was an adjustment to the ratio of SBD created in this period so the actual values are not easy to calculate but the real USD value lies somewhere between the green and blue line. The red line is the SBD denominated post payout.
At the higher end of estimates payouts per day amounted to over 800k per day in USD value.
The aggregate picture is useful to have in mind but the focus of the rest of this post is the breakdown of these payments across different cohorts of posters.
Payouts per post (Oct - Dec)
This following graph plots the payouts for individual posts in estimated USD value.
Payouts are show using conservative estimates of the USD value.
- Some posts received over 4k dollars in value, with one close to 6k in value!!
Which cohorts of people are posting?
A few posts stand out already but in the next few graphs we will use a different lens to look at this data.
Value of Payouts grouped by posting account (Oct to Dec)
What picture will emerge if over we combine all the posts over the 3 month period on individual accounts?
Distribution by account creation date
The following graph groups total payouts over the period with each dot representing an individual account. We then plots the value versus the date of account creation. The colour represents the reputation of the author.
- We see a lot of activity in the right hand area of this graph which shows that new users are getting decent rewards.
- The high rep authors made hay during this bonanza (blues and violets)
- Some accounts generated more than 40k USD in this period.
- 7 accounts made more than 30k in this period.
Payout Value Per Account (Top 100)
We can also look at this picture with accounts shown in descending order of payout.
Rep of Authors
This following graph looks at the total post payouts per account split by the reputation of author (x axis) and here the colour represents the account creation date.
Dark Blue = Older Accounts
Light Blue = Newer Accounts
- Longer established authors on Steemit and higher rep authors are making more on payouts.
- A small few authors get the majority of the daily payout
Related Posts
I am taking a deep dive into the Accounts and Activity of Users in this series of posts. The plan is to produce a series of regular reports based on the outcome of this series. You may also be interest in:
- https://steemit.com/stats/@eroche/steem-comment-data-and-automated-accounts
- https://steemit.com/stats/@eroche/steem-post-data-and-automated-accounts
- https://steemit.com/stats/@eroche/steem-network-growth
- https://steemit.com/stats/@eroche/steem-distribution-of-posting-rewards-by-account
- https://steemit.com/stats/@eroche/steem-distribution-of-posts-by-account
- https://steemit.com/stats/@eroche/steem-account-activity
- https://steemit.com/stats/@eroche/steem-geographical-distribution-of-accounts
Thank you for reading this. I write on Steemit about Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Travel and lots of random topics.
