A few days ago, @hivebuzz was prompt to pull this information for me and comment on one of my posts:
I found it a very good reminder, and you'll see why... It's also something I wanted to write about, but haven't had the chance at first, and then completely slipped my mind until today.
Also, knowing @arcange or someone from the team reads replies to these notifications, I wanted to let them know I found it really useful. This is what followed:
I've just seen that reply, so you can imagine it's a nice gesture that boosted my otherwise ordinary day so far.
And now back to the notification. It says I have just passed 22000 HP as payout from author rewards and curation. It also says in smaller letters that it includes both HBD and HP for author rewards, so it's the HP equivalent.
in the past, I used a few other accounts to post and curate specific content, but those rewards don't amount to much (less than 300 HP, I just checked); those rewards aren't counted in the rewards received mentioned above though, since they are for different accounts. But the total doesn't change significantly.
And yet, I just voted on a proposal with 44.618 HP, all mine. And that doesn't account for the HIVE I still have liquid or on Hive-Engine, mostly in diesel pools. Or the HBD I have in savings. Or all the assets I have on Hive-Engine or in games, most of them initially paid with HIVE, delegation of HP, or with HBD.
Sure, if we calculate the dollar-worth, 44k HIVE now would be worth the same as around 8.8k HIVE at 1 dollar. But how about 44k HIVE at 1 dollar? How about the increased influence on the chain, where dollars are not the ones that are counted when making decisions, HIVE Power is?
Either way, I was thinking how did I get to almost double of the amount of HP that I earned. First of all, I didn't take much HIVE out of the ecosystem, and a lot of what I've taken out found its way back in, sometimes at a profit (but not always). That's a very important factor. You can't grow your stake if you keep removing from it, unless you have a plan of putting it all back and more.
Then, a big part must've come from selling my st**m stake and then, blurt stake for Hive. The latter wasn't as valuable as the former in building up my Hive stake, but the total couldn't be impressive because I had a much smaller account back then.
For the rest, there are so many ways I could have gotten them. In no particular order, since I don't know the details of how much each contributed, we have:
- other airdrops on Hive or by projects started and built mainly around Hive
- investments/profits/earnings and airdrops from other ecosystems that (partially) made their way to Hive
- bonuses I received (for example, 3 land plots for participating in the Land presale at Splinterlands, all sold at various moments in time and profit at least for the first one kept as HIVE, since funds for participating to the presale were from outside Splinterlands)
- delegating HP for a higher APR than curation + "interest" (I don't currently do that, and will rarely do it in the future, since I'd rather use the stake myself)
- Hive-Engine projects that distribute HIVE or HBD dividends
- fees and rewards on diesel pools
- small but regular profits taken from Hive-Engine projects, tribes, and games, where applicable (many had to be written off as losses, at least as time invested, if not funds too)
- HBD interest
- HP adjustments (roughly 3% HP "interest")
- inspired trades
- even delegating RCs for an insignificant amount of SWAP.HIVE rewards at some point, something I hoped would have been a better opportunity, but it wasn't (I also delegated RCs for free to help out)
When we talk about Hive-Engine rewards, I often aggregate a smaller or bigger portion of them as SWAP.HIVE, which eventually get recycled in Hive-Engine, other opportunities, or withdrawn and increasing my HP or HBD in savings.
When I review the ways I increased my HP over time, I realize I could have had an even higher stake today with some better decisions (as many of us). And there are of course areas I haven't tapped into.
But there were recently discussions on what it means to be an extractor from Hive, and a metric given was if you had less HIVE stake than the rewards you earned from the chain, you could be considered an extractor. Of course, this is a cold metric that doesn't and can't take into account the particular life situations of anyone.
Now, I do take this as rewards received for creating or curating content. And having a stake twice the amount of my rewards looks pretty good. I didn't have a doubt that I would be "above the line", but it's good to see some numbers (which are always there in the HiveBuzz ranking, but I haven't looked at them in a long time).
I believe all other rewards need separate discussions. Witnesses are crucial for keeping this chain running and being relatively decentralized. And their rewards partially pay for infrastructure and the fact that they need to be "on-call" in case something goes wrong with their nodes.
DHF funding generates serious debates, but it also different than rewards for creating content. They also need some accountability.
And all the rest I mentioned, from HBD interest to HP adjustments, delegations for APR, and returns from Hive Engine projects or games, etc., not to mention having your own business on Hive, they are all in the category of investment returns or business revenue.
In a way, having a HP stake is an investment decision which is justified in different ways by different investors (investment in community, in the tech, in the freedom of speech and action, businesses: to have enough RCs to be able to create "free" accounts and delegate to new users, for the returns, as a way to attract people to your posts through upvotes, etc.) and needs to be protected by its owner.
How are you doing with your HP? You can check the rewards received from here. Search for your username, and look at the columns Author (HP) and Curation (HP). Add them up, and that's the amount of HP you received from author and curation rewards. Compare that to how much HP you have. You can comment here with your findings, if you want to, or not. Up to you.
Update: An easier way to find your all time author and curation rewards is from Hive Stats.