A Comprehensive Guide To Understanding Your Steemit Wallet

I have seen too many people getting frustrated because they love Steemit, but they absolutely do not understand their wallet. @karenb54 - I dedicate this to you. I hope it helps, love!

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Trust me - I was one of those people because I do not come from any kind of cryptocurrency background. So I'm going to try and give you a step-by-step understanding of all the stuff in your wallet, what it means to you, and how it affects Steemit. (NOTE: If anyone with more knowledge sees any wrong information, kindly let me know so I can edit! Thanks.)

Of course your wallet is confusing!
You've got:

STEEM, STEEM POWER, and STEEM DOLLARS!

For newbies, they should be called something like:

Power this shit up, Road to being a Whale, and You can cash this.

That would have made MY life a lot easier in the beginning! But I digress.

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STEEM

STEEM can be exchanged in markets like Poloniex and Bittrex, but the last time I checked 1 STEEM is worth about 23 cents USD. In the markets it is listed as STEEM.

From what I understand, the reason why the value of STEEM keeps dropping is because there's too much liquid STEEM flooding the markets.

Remember that old lesson from school about

Supply and Demand?

Yeah, well there's too much STEEM floating around and not enough buyers... which is why Powering UP is important.

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STEEM POWER (SP)

Your STEEM POWER (SP) directly affects your voting power and how many vests you have. I'll get to that in a moment.

Here are a few reasons why Powering Up your STEEM is important:

• It takes STEEM out of the supply chain (which, as I previously mentioned, is flooded.)
• It becomes a long-term investment into Steemit because once you're powered up, those "funds" are locked into a kind of escrow.
• Your SP directly affects your vests and vote power. The more you have the more powerful your vote.
• SP generates interest.
• The moment you select Power Down, the initial amount in your STEEM POWER account is then divided into 104 equal payments.

So, if you only have 100 SP in your account
and you decide to Power Down...
100/104 = .96
With the STEEM market at approximately 23 cents USD,
you would get a whopping WEEKLY payout
of about 22 cents USD.

Still not sure why STEEM POWER (SP) is important?

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Let's talk VESTS for a moment

To see your account go to http://Steemd.com/@YOURUSERNAME

This is my account:

When I reached 1.00M vests, I got my vote slider.

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IMHO - the vote slider is a royal pain in the ass and totally inappropriate to anyone beneath dolphin or whale status. This is why I vote 100% and attempt to upvote as close to 40 votes/comments a day... because as a minnow, it doesn't matter!

RANT OVER

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I do not understand the conversion of STEEM POWER (SP) to vests. I do not know where they get these numbers or what the calculations are.

That being said...

• For every $1 SBD (STEEM DOLLARS) created for payouts, there is also 9 STEEM being created.
  SBD and STEEM separate and individual "currencies"/tokens.
  In order for your STEEM POWER to generate interest your vests have been mapped to STEEM, otherwise your vote power would probably never increase without directly investing money into it.

• This is also why STEEM should not sit in your wallet for very long!
  Either Power Up, Trade or Sell
  because letting it sit there does absolutely nothing for you or the Steemit economy.

How do I know if I'm a minnow or a whale?

If you're reading this, you're probably somewhere between plankton and a minnow. Your "status" is directly correlated to how many vests you have.

I found a wonderful explanation by @beanz

• Plankton = up to 1M VESTS
• Minnow = >1 to 10M VESTS
• Dolphin = >10 to 100M VESTS
• Orca = >100 to 1,000M VESTS
• Whale = >1,000M VESTS

As you can see from my vests, I'm a mid-sized minnow almost half way to being a dolphin!

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STEEM DOLLARS (SBD)

Your STEEM DOLLARS (SBD) are tradeable tokens on cryptocurrency markets such as Bittrex and Poloniex.

The last time I checked, 1 SBD was worth about 92 cents USD. Whatever amount you have in SBD in your wallet is easier to calculate into "real funds" aka fiat aka CASH.

• Your SBD accrues interest the longer you keep it in your wallet.
• While it has dropped in value, it is the more stable of the two Steemit currencies.
• It does not affect your vote power or vests

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SAVINGS ACCOUNTS

With two tokens (STEEM and SBD), there must also be two savings accounts.

STEEM SAVINGS

SBD SAVINGS

I admit that I have not done a lot of reading about the savings accounts, but here is what I understand about them. The purpose of the savings account is to LOCK your funds in a safe, encrypted space for up to 3 days. In essence, this is an extra security measure in the event that your account is hacked. It gives you enough time to secure your account, cancel any pending transactions, and do everything in your power to recover your account.

For a deeper understanding of the Savings Account,
read @steemitguide's blog
Guide on Steemit Savings Account, Everything you need to know about this Feature that Helps Secure your STEEM & STEEM DOLLAR

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ESTIMATED ACCOUNT VALUE

Because most digital currency is tied to BTC, your estimated value is going to have its highs and lows, changing with a fairly volatile market. Your Estimated Account Value is the approximate value of your entire account.

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More Newbie Educational Material

* Best Practices for Steemit Newbie Artists

* My 90 Days. Expectations. Thoughts on Curation and Setting Goals

* Strategy for following ENGAGED people on Steemit

* Optimize your Steemit Posts

* A very basic guide to understanding Cryptocurrency

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	I created this 100% Steem Power badge. It's free to download and use Challenge accepted from @lukestokes

Your comments, upvotes and shares are always appreciated.

Thank you.

For older content, visit my Steemit blog page