What is power down?

in steem •  9 years ago 

Ok, this might be a stupid question, and may result in my very first post getting down voted, but I am still new here, and I have no idea what the Power Down means next to my Steem balance.

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Your STEEM are locked up as SteemPower. Powering Down converts them back to STEEM in weekly batches, over a period of 2 years.

SteemPower gives you voting power, so the more SteemPower you have, the more weight it has when you upvote or downvote things; however, SteemPower is not transferrable so you can't send it to someone else or sell it like you could Steem. You can Power Up to turn Steem into SteemPower (this is instantaneous), and you can Power Down to turn SteemPower back into Steem (but this takes a long time).

If I remember the rules correctly, you can Power Down and not claim the Steem that is powering down until it's all done, in which case you'll get it all in one year, but every time you claim some of the powering down Steem before it's all powered down, it makes the rest of it take longer to finish powering down, so if you're constantly claiming every bit as it powers down, it'll take 2 years to get it all. So basically, you can power down quickly (1 year) by being patient, or slowly by being impatient (2 years) but you get some of it sooner.

Awesome response, thanks for explaining it.

You can power UP and your committed for 2 years but your not subject to the STEEM dilution. You can Power Down and you'll get a withdraw every 7 days based on when you hit the button (or you can cancel at any point). The withdraws are equal but will you will see a bit more STEEM each time to compensate for the extra STEEM in print.

The Web UI does a full power up and power down (all Steem or all Vests respectively) although the blockchain supports the power up or down of any amount.

How is it not subject to dilution?

9 total steem across all users? Is there any proportionality or is it all the same to everyone?

Awesome response, thanks for explaining it.

Thanks, that is even clearer, now it makes sense.

Thank you I had the same question and your answer was very well explained

your comment really hepled thank you

Very helpful! Thank you. :)

Is this where the advanced feature of split or power up comes? Power Up meaning it gives you STEEM POWER but not STEEM and split giving you both? If so, wouldn't it be most advisable for new users to Power Up entirely until they feel they have enough STEEM POWER to make good STEEM off of their curation rewards?

1 year is a long time to wait for your SP to be converted into Steem!

I consider it a feature, not a bug. Instead of ducking into Steemit for a quick profit-taking, the slowness of power down encourages people to hang around and continue creating and curating content so as to earn more.

I just initiated my first power down. It comes to two Steem per week. My goal is to earn AT LEAST three per week so that my Steem Power keeps growing even as I'm actually taking a little bit of wealth out of the system to use on other things.

Thats a great comment, thank you for it !

I like the way you think..nice explanation

Thanks @modprobe, really helped me understand the power down concept.

Maybe this is also a stupid question, but I would like to ask, if the comments get upvote will it make money?

sure, yes

very good question ;D

That was probably the most concise, clear answer I've seen about the power down process.

I have been wondering what this feature means. Thanks for sharing this helpful tips.

thanks :D

[UPDATE as of February 2018]

Powering Down will take around 13 WEEKS (roughly 3+ Months)
No more waiting for 2 Years. Cheers!

steem power down.png

hi bro so i can do power down after 13 week of my inscription

You can initiate "Power Down" anytime Bro, but the whole process will take 13 Weeks.
Powering Down is like a withdrawal of your STEEM Funds, but it is after 13 weeks that you could fully retrieve the whole amount you've withdrawn.

Ok but i thing we can whithrawal just 3.5 steem power in week is that tru??

I just initiated a Power Down and it calculates to 16 steem power every week. This equals about 13 weeks if I don't cancel the Power Down.

I just begin to use Steem, I'm happy to hear that.

@ronobligado ... good work man ... helped me alot.

thanks even tho its still rather complicated and confusing

Exactly! I completely dont understand the idea of this. E.g. If I have 30 STEEM, I put them in STEEM POWER, so that means, that those 30 STEEMs are gone? And for me it will take f-ing 2 years to get my ridiculous 30STEEM back?
Whattaa hell? Then what if one day I want to invest 1000 STEEMs and after a period of I dunno - 2 months, I dont feel like blogging anymore, or just dont believe in the platform - it takes me 2 f-ing years to get my STEEM back?
How is this productive? More and more, I am staring to find so many loose ends on this platform, I dont know...

Plus - we are talking years. How can we know that STEEM itself will survive for 2 years. What is this crap, that is just ridiculous.

My thoughts exactly. I really want to give this a go but I can't see myself bankrolling it if I can't cut my losses if I need to. 2 years is a long time and who knows what the $ value of steem could be by then!?

you just about covered my own thoughts, so ditto !

The Steem Power Down period has now dropped to just 3 months or 13 draw downs I believe. So you no longer need to wait 2 years to withdraw your Steem power.

ok - Thanks for letting me know - not that it helps much at the moment, anyway ! lol

I'm new (3 days), and I don't even understand all of it yet, but, like you, I do understand the 2 years part. I guess I can 'somewhat' understand why they do it, but 2 years is a l-o-n-g time. From what I've seen, I do believe it will continue to take-off. However, since it's still fairly new with no track record, I'm very hesitant to put any of my money into it, which I was considering. I guess I won't make a decision to actually put any money into it until I understand it better, and see how it performs. I am more excited about Steemit than anything else I've come across online.

just repeating after @joannajablonka -The Steem Power Down period has now dropped to just 3 months or 13 draw downs (weeks). So you dont wait 2 years any more.

Cool, thanks.

Its only $1 how low can it get? More and more people are joining it will only grow

I still dont fully understand it, but thank you for more information in comments. You have my upvotes.

This is a great article that can help many users along the way.

Checkout the steem white paper https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf

Provides a pretty good explanation and has been updated since this original post (power down now over 13 weeks as somebody already mentioned).

I needed that info also
thanks

great post were so many new here and everything small counts

I still don't get it. Why does it have to take 2 years? Thats a really long time. Like, what?

You are responding to a very old thread, the power down now takes 13 weeks.

techn. specifics?

p.s. Where can I find this and other data on the steemit system?
Steemit is such a genious project, I don't understand why there no such as:
tech specifics at a very central point of the page, so we dont have to ask all these simple questions the answer to which get outdated. This guessing around is not nice, there should be / could be a link at the page footer, for example, or in the menu/s, so that even a newbie can find it:

OK phew! Thank goodness that's more bearable.

Thank You!!

Wow I fooled this thread and understood it more, thanks for asking it in the first place

Thx,....

  • Steem/it must somehow resolve the content update feature - there are so many great articles out there with outdated details/data/errors in the details that can never be fied but in the comments, ... this is actually lowering the steemit-content-value. 😢

Pertanyaan yang bagus sehingga saya pun dapat memahaminya dari jawaban sahabat steemit lainnya, terima kasih

Your answers helped me a lot, thank you.

Thank you very much for the explanation. It's very clear

cool question had the same concern

Haha.. Your question is very helpful to me better understanding @steemit ! thanks.

Makes total sense! Thanks.

Jo I have bought 34 steem and they show in my steem. I also have 0.5 steem power I still don't understand what that means, what it does and what power down means

Im new here and this actually helped me alot

Helpful. Thank you!

@nenad-ristic thanks for raising this question on my behalf 2 years ago. Now i totally understand everything about powering down. Its the most rewarding thread i have perused. So many teachers that contributed did excellently well. I am now a better person from your read.
@antigenx

Did you know that when you google it. Thats the first page thats showing up :) Have a nice day

Yeah true that, just googled it and that how i got to this place had no idea of the power down stuff till i google it and it show me this and it really helped thanks

No question is a stupid question, this post proves it :) 👍

Thank you very much for the explanation.