How Engaged Are Steem Users in Voting for Witnesses?

That's what this monthly report is all about!

This month's engagement rate for accounts with 100,000 VESTS or more is:

32.88%

That's up 6.6% since last month, with a 5.9% increase in new accounts.

The percentage of VESTs actively voting is:

70.8%

If you're not sure what a witness vote is, or why it's important, please see my older post Steemit is Free, But Your Witness Vote Determines its Future.

Witnesses, within a Delegated Proof of Stake (DPOS) blockchain like STEEM, are very important because they protect the blockchain and add new blocks with validated transactions to it. Unlike Bitcoin or other Proof of Work (POW) blockchains, there is no concern with centralized mining farms controlling or forking the protocol into something the users don't want. With DPOS, the largest stake holders get to pick who controls the protocol and those stake holders can change the witnesses at any time by changing their witness votes. For a detailed explanation of DPOS, see DPOS Consensus Algorithm - The Missing White Paper. You can also see this post of mine for why I'm such a fan.

This report uses Hive account@arcange's STEEMSQL. You can now pay for access via https://steemsql.com/ for 1 SBD a day or 10 SBD for a month. Check it out and give him a Witness vote if you haven't already.

MV stands for Million VESTS.

VESTS are like vested shares in the STEEM blockchain and relate to the STEEM token by a ratio (491.487 STEEM per MV as of this report).

VESTS impact the weight of your vote on posts and the influence of your vote for STEEM Witnesses.

Here's how I'm filtering the data:

All Accounts: No filter applied, includes all accounts.
> 100,000: Accounts with 100,000 or more VESTS.
> 0 Posts: Accounts which have posted at least once.
> 100k & > 0 Posts: Accounts with 100,000 or more VESTS who have also posted at least once.
Active: Accounts which have voted, commented, and posted a root post in the last 30 days.

The percentage values in parentheses show the change since last month's report.

The total VEST numbers listed below don't include accounts belonging to Steemit, the company, which are not currently participating in witness voting.

Overview

This shows the total number of accounts and VESTS.

Filter	Accounts	% Accounts	VESTS	% VESTS
All Accounts	1,001,566 (5.9%)	100%	204,139 (0.6%)	100%
> 100,000 VESTS	37,745 (2.4%)	3.77% (-3.3%)	198,740 (0.6%)	97.36% (0%)
> 0 Posts	452,118 (6.1%)	45.14% (0.2%)	151,775 (0.5%)	74.35% (-0.1%)
> 100k & > 0 Posts	28,251 (3.2%)	2.82% (-2.8%)	149,029 (0.5%)	73% (-0.2%)
Active	81,318 (-2.1%)	8.12% (-7.6%)	77,571 (2.1%)	39.03% (1.5%)

Voters

This shows the total number of accounts and VESTS which have voted for a witness or set a proxy.

Filter	Accounts	% Accounts	VESTS	% VESTS
All Accounts	47,163 (7.6%)	4.71% (7.5%)	144,539 (0.9%)	70.8% (0.9%)
> 100,000 VESTS	12,411 (6.7%)	32.88% (6.6%)	144,055 (0.9%)	72.48% (0.9%)
> 0 Posts	41,791 (8.3%)	9.24% (8.3%)	116,136 (1.2%)	76.52% (1.2%)
> 100k & > 0 Posts	11,852 (6.9%)	41.95% (6.9%)	115,679 (1.2%)	77.62% (1.2%)
Active	20,157 (4.3%)	24.79% (4.3%)	62,329 (1.8%)	80.35% (1.8%)

Voting For Inactive Witnesses

This shows the number of accounts which are currently voting for witness accounts in the top 100 there not currently active witnesses. This number should be 0.

Filter	Accounts	% Accounts	VESTS	% VESTS
All Accounts	8,310 (-8.4%)	17.62% (-8.4%)	32,719 (-14.5%)	22.64% (-14.5%)
> 100,000 VESTS	2,099 (-13.7%)	16.91% (-13.7%)	32,632 (-14.5%)	22.65% (-14.5%)
> 0 Posts	7,935 (-8.3%)	18.99% (-8.3%)	32,226 (-14.6%)	27.75% (-14.6%)
> 100k & > 0 Posts	2,064 (-13.8%)	17.41% (-13.9%)	32,142 (-14.7%)	27.79% (-14.6%)
Active	2,944 (-18.4%)	14.61% (-18.3%)	12,189 (-30.4%)	19.56% (-30.3%)

These are the inactive witnesses in the top 100 as of this report, but keep in mind some of them may only be temporarily inactive:

wackou
roadscape
steempty
datasecuritynode
witness.svk
bitcoiner
arhag
au1nethyb1
cyrano.witness
theprophet0
bayareacoins
kushed
tdv.witness

Commentary

We're up over 1,000,000 STEEM accounts! That's a pretty exciting milestone, but unfortunately active accounts dropped by more than 2% to 81,318. I'm happy to see accounts with some voting weight (more than 100k VESTS) are up 6.6% to 32.88% and overall VEST usage for voting is also increasing (slightly) to 70.8%. In addition, voting for inactive witnesses has declined quite a bit, which is a good thing.

I wanted to highlight a helpful tool for you to get further insight on witnesses and who they vote for here: http://steeme.com/witness created by Hive account@asbear.

Have You Voted for a Witness?

If you haven't voted yet, please consider setting Hive account@lukestokes as your proxy voter. Otherwise, go vote for some STEEM Witnesses you respect who you believe will do what's in the best interest of the network. I hope that includes my witness, Hive account@lukestokes.mhth. If you're not sure who to vote for, take a look at some witnesses you respect and see who they are voting for via their account on steemd.com or steemdb.com. Some witnesses are very active behind the scenes supporting important projects, but not as active as bloggers, so keep that in mind when you vote. This should not be a popularity contest favoring those who are the best communicators (though communication as a witness is certainly important). It's meant to put in place the best people to support the STEEM blockchain. That includes multiple dimensions from technical expertise to economic theory to community building.

For more on what witnesses are doing each week, follow Hive account@timcliff's weekly Reports from the Witnesses post.

Again, if you're not sure what a witness vote is, or why it's important, please see my older post Steemit is Free, But Your Witness Vote Determines its Future.

Thank you! I hope you found this useful.

Previous Reports:

Luke Stokes is a father, husband, programmer, STEEM witness, DAC launcher, and voluntaryist who wants to help create a world we all want to live in. Learn about cryptocurrency at UnderstandingBlockchainFreedom.com