_{Designed using Pixellab App Sitting arrangement}

Hello everyone

Greetings to you all in this community as the Steemit Engagement Challenge Season 5 week 3 is here, this is my entry for the theme of this week's contest from this community.

Without further ado, let's get to the business of the day.

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EXPLAIN THE FOLLOWING TERMS STEEM, SP, SBD, AND TRX

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The above terms are rewards gotten from the steemit platform by users of the platform. All these are incentives given to users when a post is been curated as the basic rewards for contributing positively to the community.

_{Screenshot from my Steem page}

Steem is said to be the fundamental unit of account on the steem blockchain. It is a liquid currency and the native token of the steemit platform. Steem is how all other tokens on the platform derive their value. This explains why SBD disappears from our reward bucket when the price of Steem is low.

_{Screenshot from Steem Whitepaper, pg 8}

Users of the steemit platform can buy and sell Steem units for fiat money on the open markets. Steem is traded as one trade bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies or any company’s stock. Steem token is what users of the steemit platform power up to grow their accounts via the process known as "Powering Up". By powering up, one converts Steem to Steem Power (SP).

_{Screenshot from Coinmarketcap}

The price of Steem at the time I'm writing this post is $0.2343 ranking it at number 250 among other cryptocurrencies in the crypto space.

Steem Blockchain Dollar (SBD), an acronym popularly mistaken for Steem Back Dollar, is another token that users earn as a reward for their contributions. As presented to us by the Steem team on the white paper, Steem Dollars was designed as an undertaking to bring stability to the cryptocurrency world and to individuals who utilize the Steem network.

_{Screenshot from Steem Whitepaper, pg 9}

Among all Steemit reward tokens, SBD used to be the highest in value as it is pegged to the US dollar. But, it's currently nonexistent as the value of Steem is on the downside. Steem dollars can also be used to buy or exchange for Steem via the Steem wallet while also being available for trading.

_{Screenshot from Counmarketcap}

The price of SBD at the time of writing this article is $2.37 and ranked 492.

Steem Power (SP) is solely Steem that has been dedicated to a thirteen-week vesting
schedule. In layman's terms, it is the measure of how much one has invested in the future of Steem.

_{Screenshot from Steem Whitepaper, pg 8}

Unlike every other token reward, SP balances are not transferrable except via automated recurring conversion requests i.e converting them back to Steem in a process known as "Powering Down". This implies that SP tokens can not be traded on cryptocurrency exchange platforms without converting back to Steem.

Steem Power also serves as the determinant of a user's rank and influence on the steemit platform.

Tron is the native token of the TRON Blockchain just as Steem is to the Steem Blockchain. Thus, Tron is a third-party incentive in the steemit platform that users earn in proportion to the SP they earn on posts.

Initially from the inception of the Tron and Steem blockchain partnership in 2020, TRX rewards were distributed in direct ratio to the amount of Steem Power users earned on a post. This was calculated at the ratio of 1 TRX : 1 SP. That is, for every SP earned, you get an additional 1 Tron.

_{Screenshot from Steemitblog}

However, with the fruitfulness of this partnership, the distribution ratio was changed. It was communicated by the Steemit team that from October 15th, 2022, TRX will be distributed in a ratio of 0.5 TRX : 1 SP. Meaning for every 1 SP a user earns, they get 0.5 TRX instead of the initial 1 Tron.

_{Screenshot from Steemitblog}

TRX is a utility token used in the governance of the Tron blockchain where users stake their TRX to gain voting power known as Tron Power (TP) which is used to vote the network validators called Super Representatives on the Tron blockchain, just as SP is used to vote Witnesses on Steem Blockchain.

_{Screenshot from my Tronlink Wallet showing the stake and vote clicks}

_{Screenshot from my Tronlink Wallet showing some Super Representatives}

Like Steem and SBD, Tron is also traded at any time in the open market. Therefore to optimise one's TRX earnings, it's advised users set the post-rewards system at 100% SP, as doing this, will convert every other Steem token to SP thus increasing the SP ratio which in turn increases the TRX earnings.

_{Screenshot from Coinmarketcap}

TRX price at the time I am writing this post is $0.06376 and it is ranked 15.

All these tokens mentioned when earned from posting content are only claimed after 7 days (168 hours) of posting that content. Even as we have not been seeing Tron in our wallets lately.

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EXPLAIN THE BENEFITS OF BUILDING ONE'S SP IN THE STEEM BLOCKCHAIN

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_{Screenshot from Steem Whitepaper, pg 8}

The benefits of building up one's SP (short for Steem Power) can be likened to that of a sportsman who has put in the time at the gym to develop his muscles or that of parents who take it upon themselves to train their children in the right way or better still a person who has decided to invest in his future. In essence, I am saying the benefits of building one's SP are limitless.

If a user invests in his/her SP, such a user will reap the reward of having more curation rewards from the sharing pool and more curating power, which in turn leads to more influence. It can be likened to an Athlete who took the extra time to train standing a better chance of winning a medal than those who don't.

It is on this rationale that clubs such as club75, club100 and club5050 were created for all steemians to grow not only their accounts but the Steem Ecosystem as well. As with a better SP, you can also help distribute satisfying rewards by Curation.

Without SP a user cannot post, upvote, downvote, comment or resteem any post, it's on this footing that the Steemit team delegates 15 SP to all newcomers to help them start up their accounts. Also, users with low Steem power have a negligible upvote on content, making such account owners' curation rewards little to nothing. These are some of the reasons why it is important to build one's SP.

In all this, if all users chose to build their SP, it will certainly help in building not only their accounts but the Steemit community to a large extent. Thus, I encourage all users to build their SP.

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EXPLAIN THE MEANING OF CURATION IN THE STEEM BLOCKCHAIN AND ALSO EXPLAIN IF SELF-VOTING IS A GOOD OR BAD PRACTICE ON THE STEEM BLOCKCHAIN

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MEANING OF CURATION IN STEEM BLOCKCHAIN

To my knowledge of Steemit, curation is the act of checking the uniqueness, and quality of content and rewarding them accordingly by upvoting it. This involves users taking the time to evaluate and vote on content that is playing important role in adding value to the community.

Thereby rewarding users who have put in the work to create such content after wholly evaluating the content to ensure it is free from plagiarism and beneficial to other users.

On the content is upvoted by other users alike after checking all the aspects mentioned above, such content is said to be curated, and in turn, the owner of such content is rewarded concerning the voting weight (SP) of those who have upvoted his/her content.

IS SELF-VOTING A GOOD OR BAD PRACTICE ON STEEM BLOCKCHAIN?

Self-Voting in simple terms is the act of a user upvoting his/her content. The question of whether this is a good thing needs no different answer than a big fat NO! This for me is a bad practice and therefore, I urge users to stay away from this act. This can be likened to someone paying themselves for doing their laundry, more of a self-gratifying act. Such acts don't build the community at large, as it is a self-centred act, so I would say stop being self-centred.

_{Screenshot from Steem Whitepaper, pg 14}

In the long run, if such an act is not condemned, there would be nothing to gain for new and upcoming accounts. This singular act brings the need for curating to a futile exercise.

Likewise, those with low SP will be left with no form of reward, and no means to grow their accounts if they are to vote their content by themselves, as their voting won’t amount to anything meaningful since their voting weight/power is low. Thus, self-voting is an awful act and should be condemned.

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EXPLAIN WHAT YOU UNDERSTAND BY THE VOTING WINDOW IN THE STEEM BLOCKCHAIN

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The voting window can be understood as the time interval for a post to be active before it expires or rewards can be earned on the Steem blockchain. As I said earlier under the tokens header that it takes 7 days for users to redeem these tokens, therefore this is known as the voting window as users can vote on the posts to add value within the 7 days. Again, not every hour within the 7 days interval puts full value to the post. That is, a certain percentage of these rewards will return to the reward pool if users vote at a certain time within 7 days.

To explain, there are intervals within the 7 days where a vote on a post gives 100% rewards to the author on a post, this is between 5 mins to 6.5 days (6 days, 12 hours) after the post was made. This means that voting for a post that is 0 - 5 minutes old and older than 6 days 12hrs would return a certain percentage of the rewards to the reward pool. The percentages of the reward distributed based on the time of voting are:

Time of post	% Distributed	% Back to Reward Pool
0 min	0	100
1 min	20	80
2 min	40	60
3 min	60	40
4 min	80	20
5+ min	100	0

From the above table, one can see that for the first 5 minutes of a post, every 1 minute adds a 20% reward value to the post whereas from 5 minutes to 6 days, 12 hours add a 100% reward value. After 6 days and 12 hrs period, a depletion occurs at the rate of 75%, 50%, 25% and finally 0% at 7 days. Therefore, votes coming in at 0-minute and 7 days intervals will add no reward to a post. The window at which rewards return to the reward pool is known as the reverse auction window.

Let's look for a post less than 7 days old, but then here is a screenshot of my voting manna before the voting.

_{My voting manna before the vote on Steemworld}

I voted of the post less than 7 days of a follow user and friend of mine. Below are the images before and after voting.

Before voting	After voting

After the vote was entered, it is seen that the value of the post went up from $0.78 - $0.79 an increase of $0.01. Checking on my voting manna, I found a reduction.

_{My voting manna after the vote on Steemworld}

It was seen that a reduction of 1.73% had occurred as it moved from 87.11% - 85.38%

Now let's look for a post older than 7 days, but then here is the screenshot of my voting manna before the voting.

_{My voting manna befor the vote on Steemworld}

On the page of this my very friend I voted on a post older than 7 days. Below are the images before and after voting.

Before voting	After voting

It was observed that nothing changed, no value was added to the post, neither did my vote counted. The number of voters remained the same on 28 and the value remained $18.09. Checking on my voting manna, I found that it remained the same with no reduction.

_{My voting manna after the vote on Steemworld}

Thus, confirming the theory that voting on a post older than 7 days adds no value to the post.

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ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF STEEM BLOCKCHAIN.

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ADVANTAGES

• Steem blockchain rewards content creators for their efforts in putting up quality content on the platform with reward tokens which can be exchanged to support them financially.

• Steem blockchain helps to keep valuable information of high quality as it encourages users to create quality content.

• Steem blockchain promotes socialization among users. This could be seen as the bedrock of the engagement challenges.

DISADVANTAGES

• Quality content may be bypassed as rewards are not guaranteed therefore, I may discourage users.

• The need to have a large amount of SP as the Lower SP curation is primarily minor when it comes to rewards distributions.

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CONCLUSION

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The Steem blockchain is the first social media-based platform with the sole aim of preserving the value of original content and also rewarding content creators with incentives. These incentives include Steem, SBD, SP, and TRX, which can be exchanged in exchange for fiat currencies.

THANK YOU!

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I like to invite @fredquantum, @Ruthjoe and @patjewell, and any other persons who would like to participate too to CLICK HERE for more instructions.

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All Images shared were screenshots from the various sources with their links

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NOTE: Always have a smile on your face, as you are never fully dressed without one.