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Am happy to be back here again this week to continue what we started last week...smile. well I see this week's topic as a kind of continue from where we stopped. We have been discussing about the steemit blockchain and I must say it has really exposed me to a lot these few days about the chain.

I deemed it fit to participate again this week because I see it as an avenue to delve even much deeper into the subject. Kindly find my entry below, I hope you find it interesting as usual. Let's go....

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Explain The following terms, STEEM, SBD, SP and TRX

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The term above are the reward or incentives for every blogging activities carried out on the steemit platform. I hope we have not forgotten that steemit is the first DApp built on the steem blockchain. All the above mentioned token are all afflicted to steemit and I will do well to expanciate on them below.

• Steem

Steem is the native token of the steem blockchain. Since steemit is built on the steem blockchain as the very first DApp, it is then logical to expect steem as the major cryptocurrency on the steemit platform. This token is used to reward authors, curators and witness who ensure the smooth running of the steemit platform.

In my previous post, I highlighted a sharing formula for this incentive on the steemit platform. The witness who are saddled with the responsibility of validating and signing blocks get 10% reward from the reward pool, 15% is allocated to shareholder. You can also call them holders of huge steem power (SP) while the last 75% are shared between authors and curators.

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^{screenshot was taken from coinmarketcap}

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Presently, the price of steem is quite bearish due to the current situation of the market. We are looking forward to better days where all coin will go bullish. The price of steem is presently $0.235 just as seen in the statistics above.

• Steem Power

Steem power is also referred to as SP, users on the steemit blog also earn this token but then it is automatically transferred to vesting. It is not received like raw steems which you get to trade or do whatever with almost immediately.
It is also believe hat the more steems power (SP) you hold, the more influential you're on the platform.

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^{screenshot of so taken from my wallet}

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Apart from the SP reward you get which is automatically transferred to vesting, you could also manually add up to your stake/vesting by means of power up. Power up is the process of converting your raw steems to Steem power. It also take 4 week for it to be converted back to raw steems.

If you must contribute significantly to the affairs of this platform, then you must take this aspect serious. You need to hold large amount of SP, by doing this you can influence the system positively and also contribute to it growth.

• Steem Dollars

Every ecosystem wants stability and as such tries to peg or tie their token to a dollar value. Steemit is no exceptions. With SBD, steem is tied to a dollar such that
1SBD : 1Dollar. Now if you're conversant with with the present value of SBD, you would see that it has exceeded the value of a dollar by far, that's to show that the platform is doing quite fine.

For better understanding, let's take a look at the present value of SBD on one of our trusted crypto platform called coinmarketcap.

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^{screenshot taken fromCoinmarketcap}

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From the shot, you can see that the current price as at the time of compiling this work is $2.38 which is obviously above the normal value of dollar.

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• Tron (TRX)

Tron is another token which was integrated into the steemit platform. It is not a native currency of the steem blockchain, it was ingrafted into it in the early days of steemit via a partnership and it has remained ever since. It is also a token used to reward users activities on the platform.

The initial reward sharing ratio was 1SP : 1TRX but there was an official update recently which seems to bring a modification to this sharing formula. It's is now 1SP: 0.5TRX.
Inspite of this new development, I still consider trx as an additional reward for our blogging and social activities on the steemit platform.

I think it is also important to highlight the value of Tron as at the time of compiling this work. We can see from the screenshot below that the value of Trx is $0.06

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^{Screenshot taken from Coinmarketcap}

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Explain The Benefits Of Building Ones SP in Steem Blockchain

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In the previous section, I did a clear explanation on what Steem power (SP) is. It can simply be called your investment on the platform. It is automatically done for you by the system during payout and it can equally be done manually by means of power up. In response to the above question, I will like to share the benefit of building one's SP.

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• Influence

There is always something to do in every ecosystem to be influential, steemit as a platform has it own. One of the way to be influential and also contribute to the affairs of the platform is by wielding a substantial amount of steem power.

You could help newbies by delegating to them, you could support commuinties with it, vote witnesses etc.The steemit team also encourages users who are actively building their SP by rewarding them each time they hit a milestone i.e dolphin, 2X dolphin, orca, whale etc.

• Increased Voting power

I consider this a plus especially in the area of curating content. Without good voting power, you would leave a quality post without any form of value aside your comment. You're are meant to significantly add value to every post by upvoting it significantly. You do not arrive at a very robust steem power if you don't consistently build it via vesting or power up.

• Curating reward

Building your steem power also bring you decent reward when you use it for delegation and curating activities. There are commuinties that gives back to those who delegates to them. You also get rewarded for curating quality post via your robust voting power. A user with little or no voting power will equally get little or no reward.

• Control of supply

Come to think of it, what would the value of steem look like if everyone cashes out every steem gotten on the platform and then pumps them into the market? Well your guess is as good as mine, there would be too much of steem in circulation and you know what that mean. You can be sure that the value of steem will fall woefully.
Building or holding this helps to control the amount of steem pushed into the market (exchange) which in turn help retain or boost the value of steem. This method is also very viable apart from the #burnsteem25 and the club initiative.

The above mentioned points are more like a comprehensive and summarized view of the benefit of building one's steem power. Other point can be captured in the above mentioned points.

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Explain The Meaning Of Curation in steem Blockchain and also explain if self-voting is a good or bad practice on the steem Blockchain.

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This is a very important section which I would also take my time to explain. Curation in the steem blockchain is carried out based on certain criteria. It is not automatic. This reminds me of the common quote here on the platform which say, upvote is not guaranteed.

Let's not forget that authors are rewarded for their content but then the content must be vetted. The kind of content that are appreciated here are content of high quality, free from all forms of plagiarism and beneficial to the users in the ecosystem. Steemit blog encourage proof of brain (pob) and not other people's intellectual properties.

Plagiarism is one offence that is greatly frown at on the steemit platform, you can ruin your blogging career by engaging in this act. You do not copy and past from other users neither should you adapt valuable information from the internet and not reference it. This also include pictures and images.

Self voting

Self voting is a wrong use of one's voting power, you do not build your steem power to vote yourself, you build it to support others. This act is also frowned at on the platform and should not be encouraged as well.

Voting should be on the ground of quality and proper vetting of articles, if self voting is encouraged, it then means poor post with no value would be support by the authors who create them.

This has not added to the platform positively, you can call this greed in that you want to earn both as an author and curator at the same time without looking out for those whom the post would have benefitted more than yourself which can be newbie in this case.

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^{Explain what you understand by the voting window In steem Blockchain. Vote two posts( one that is older than 7-days and one that is less than 7-days ) and explain to us what happened between the two posts. Does all the two voted post produce monetary value and do they consume your voting manna? Before carrying out this task please go to steemworld and screenshot your present voting manna}

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Voting Window in Steem Blockchain

Voting window in steem blockchain refer to the period when a post was created to the very point when the reward on the post will be paid out. This is usually within the space of 7 days. It therefore means that the post or article made is subject to all types of scrutiny, upvote and equally downvote if found wanting or short of standard.

An upvote on a post will always count as long as the post has not paid out or expire. I can say as long as the post haven't paid out, we can say that the voting window for that post is open which signifies that upvote and downvote can still influence or affect it but the moment it pays out or expire, we can say that the voting window for that post has closed. At this point, your upvote or downvote on it is insignificant. However you can still interact with the post via comment and resteem.

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Practical Experiment

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I will be carrying out a practical approach to what I explain about voting window in this section. I will be voting on an active post (post that can still get upvote/downvote) and then vote on an expired post (post that has paid out) and then we can see how our voting power influences both post.

We want to ascertain if there is monetary value attached to the post when upvoted with our voting power. I will also be sharing with us my voting manna before and after the voting process.

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^{My voting Manna from steemworld}

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As seen from my screenshot, my voting mana is about 92.94% before my attempt to vote on the 2 types of post we were ask to upvote.
I started by upvoting an active post in Steem4Nigeria, a post whose transfer window is still valid and open.

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^{My before and after voting interaction with the post}

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The result I got after upvoting the post using 100% voting power is what the value of the post increase by $0.03 and the payout also increase just as seen in the screenshot but then my voting manna dropped from it initial value of 92.94% to 91.17% just as seen in the screenshot below.

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^{voting manna after upvoting an active post withing a 7 days period.}

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Secondly, I upvote a post which had already paid out, in other words, a post whose voting window had expired as it was posted 8 days ago. It's also a post from the steem4nigeria community. The details of the payout (authors and curators share of the reward) is as capture on the screenshot below

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^{Paid out post with detail}

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From observation, the vote didn't count, the value on the post remain unchanged but when I went to check my voting manner, I was surprised to see a slight increase instead of decrease just like we experienced when we voted an active post.

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^{voting manna after upvoting a post beyond 7days}

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I wouldn't know why there was an increase, maybe it dues to the constant recharge of the voting manna or it's just the way it's designed.

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In summary

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I started out with 92.94 voting manner, it dropped by 0.77% when I upvoted a post with an active voting window which then made my voting manna 91.17% even though it added $0.03 to the upvoted post.

I then proceeded to vote a post with an expired voting window, there was no addition to the upvoted post but then I discovered that there was a slight increment in my voting power which could be as a result of the recharge process.

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Advantages and disadvantages of STEEM Blockchain.

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Advantages

• Steem blockchain reward authors for their effort in putting up quality contest on the platform. This has in a way help all the actors on the platform financially.

• Steem blockchain like every other useful blog help to keep valuable information from authors that people can always take advantage refer to.

• Steem blockchain also maintain high blogging standard in that it vets articles or contents that are shared on the platform.

• Steem blockchain also promote socialization among user. There is this interaction and engagement that is encouraged and promoted on the platform.

Disadvantages

• Some malicious player who doesn't care about standard upvote low or no quality content on the platform.

• Some high quality content are being by passed most time due to visibility which take time and conscious effort to attain.

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Conclusion

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The steem blockchain in my opinion is really a blessing. I also love the fact that we are delved deep into how the chain operates. It has been an eye opener for me, I must say. Understanding the basic and fundamental of the steem blockchain is key. Let me round up by summarizing all the point above.

Steemit is a decentralized platform that rewards user for their their effort on the platform after being vetted however upvote is not guaranteed.
Thanks you so much for coming this far with me. I will like to invite @ruthjoe @temitopef @josepha to this platform.

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Regard:
@lhorgic♥️

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