People often do what they see other more successful people do, trying to duplicate their success by copying their actions, but without realizing that sometimes they hurt themselves and their own evolution by doing that.
Today I want to talk a little bit about people who don't have much HIVE Power on their accounts because I often see them using their voting power in the wrong way.
Before I start, I'd like to say there can be a distinction between what is best for your HIVE rewards and what is best for your tribe rewards. If you are a major holder of CTP but only have a little HP, your CTP rewards will likely be dominant.
At the same time, with HIVE (power) at the root of everything going on in the Hive ecosystem, I'd prioritize increasing my HP to a level I'm comfortable with. I still do that for my own account, and I've been on this chain for over 4 years.
With this in mind and noticing various mistakes people make, I thought this guide would be useful.
How NOT to Vote When You Have Low HIVE Power?
Before I start, I'd like to introduce a notion you might've heard of, but possibly ignored: dust.
On Hive, by dust we understand any post or comment which at the payout time has a value of less than $0.02.
Such a post or comment will NOT receive any HP or HBD rewards - neither author nor curators - and any value if any (for example, $0.01) will be redistributed back to the reward pool. Tribe rewards are not affected though.
If you pay attention to what was said above, wording matters. It doesn't say YOUR vote needs to be $0.02 minimum to matter.
But it does say that if your vote is below $0.02 and you are the only voter (for example), your vote doesn't count for the Hive rewards - not for you, not for the account you vote for.
Voting on Comments or Posts?
With the above in mind, let's analyze the options to vote on comments or on posts if your vote is below $0.02.
I do vote on comments, especially those on my own posts, but sometimes on other posts as well when I read through.
But my 20% upvote is worth $0.05 at today's prices and was more when HIVE had a higher price in dollars. And I use a lower percentage so I can spread my voting power to more people every day, which is something enough people who have at least a dolphin-level stake often do.
But voting on comments is not something you should do, in my opinion, if you have a vote value lower than $0.02. That's because most comments receive at most one vote. If that vote is yours, it's wasted. Both for you and for the comment author. None of you receive the Hive rewards.
You can alternatively use some of those comment bots that distribute 2nd layer rewards, until you have enough HP to have a $0.02 vote. This way you still reward the commenter, but you don't waste voting mana.
What you should do instead is to vote on the post(s) instead, if they are above the dust threshold or you believe they will be. And within the first 24 hours. No need to slash your curation rewards unnecessarily by voting after the first day.
More Tips
Also, here's another tip: for a small account, it's better to share lower curation rewards with a few curators (preferably of similar size, not next to a whale vote) than to be one of the few hundred votes that will share a higher chunk of curation rewards for a popular post.
I hope you have already heard of paying attention to your voting mana.
Don't let it linger at 100% because you are wasting it since it continuously regenerates and it can't go higher than 100%.
Don't drain it too much, as your voting power is reduced proportionally. Normally, if you curate every day, there is no reason for the voting mana to drop below 80% at any point. If you curate more often daily, you can keep it higher than that (I keep it around 88-90%), lowering it more when you go to sleep.
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