We've implemented multiple updates over the last few days, which brought incredible improvements to Smartsteem.com

Super Speed - Smartsteem.com is faster than ever
Full Encryption Support & Encryption via Smartsteem.com
UI Improvements
Display Available Votes
Promotion Parameters (time delay, size of votes)
Detailed Payout
Bid Overview

Super Speed

First of all, the code behind Smartsteem.com got an upgrade, which increased the speed overall drastically (for example: how fast transactions are getting handled.)

We're currently voting between 20 and 160 times per minute. Which results in 28,000 to 230,000 votes per day! In addition with keeping the data (votingpower, steempower etc.) of over 5700+ Vote-Sellers updated and more.

This puts a lot of stress onto our servers, but due to the recent improvements, we've optimized everything to make sure that our customers aren't wasting any time.

And as you know - time is STEEM!

Full Encryption Support

While we supported encrypted memos for a few months now, the outgoing transactions from @smartsteem weren't encrypted, even if the initial transfer from the customer was encrypted - which put a strain on anonymity.

However from now on, all transactions which are initiated through an encrypted transfer, are also encrypted on the side of @smartsteem & @smartmarket.

And the best part of this is..

Encryption via Smartsteem.com

Smartsteem.com gives you the power to buy upvotes and to bid-on-votes directly through the website. We're utilizing steemconnect for that, to make sure that we have the highest security standards.

And until now, transfers through Smartsteem.com were only available in an unencrypted format.

But with today's update - this has changed!

Whether you want to bid for votes with smartsteem (smartsteem.com/bid) or buy directly votes through smartmarket (smartsteem.com/buy) - everything is available fully encrypted.

The only thing you need for that, is your private memo-key, which you can get out of your password in multiple ways:

Through the Steem Chat-Wallet. A light wallet (similar to Vessel) that runs on your computer. More information here: https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@therealwolf/steem-chat-wallet-v0-1-1-previously-steem-messenger
By logging into Steemit.com with your password, which generates the memo-key out of your password & account-name. You'll find the memo-key under Settings, where the rest of your keys are.
By utilizing the code that is also used in the Steem Chat-Wallet.

UI Improvements

Enhancing the website UI is an important priority for us. So far, we've made big changes to the buy-votes and bid-for-votes sections.

Check them out yourself at Smartsteem.com.

Display Available Votes

Over the last months, our customers never truly knew how many votes were currently available for a specific post.

This resulted in good-luck transfers and often times refunds.

But from now on, you are able to check how many votes are available at a given time for a specific post directly at (smartsteem.com/buy).

Promotion Parameters

We've implemented custom parameters for post-promotion via @smartmarket (smartsteem.com/buy).

The parameters are a bit of text (json) that is added after the post-link in the transfer memo.

https://steemit.com/steem/@smartsteem/new-post {"delay":{"time":"5","unit":"m"},"votes":{"amount":"s"}}

But don't worry, everything is added automatically if you initiate the promotion via smartsteem.com/buy.

Even if you want to send a transfer manually, the parameters can be copied via click on Copy Link

Time Delay

You're now able to send a transfer to @smartmarket with a time delay parameter, which lets us know that we should process the transfer as soon as the specific amount of time has passed.

{"delay":{"time":"5","unit":"m"}}

In this case - the paramter says that the transfer should be processed in 5 minutes.

Possible units are m for minutes and h for hours.

Number of Votes

We currently have over 5700 vote-sellers and many of them are planktons and minnows, with really low vote-values.

And we are using a custom divider to make sure that a post isn't receiving 1000 * 0.001$ votes for a 1$. Instead, you might receive between 10 and 200 votes.

However, some users really want so many votes and some other users want as few votes as possible.

That's what the votes parameter is for.

{"votes":{"amount":"s"}}

In this case - the post would receive more smaller votes.

Possible parameters are xs for many, many smaller votes, s for more smaller votes, m for the normal amount of votes and l (large) for fewer votes.

Please keep in mind that multiple parameters have to be written like this:

{"delay":{"time":"5","unit":"m"},"votes":{"amount":"s"}}

Detailed Payout

The post-payout on STEEM went through a lot of changes in the last few months. Initially, set at 50% SBD and 50% Steempower, this value is dynamic - based on multiple factors.

We combined this with the ability to predict the payout, without any changes to the STEEM & SBD prices of course.

You will find this feature directly at smartsteem.com/buy.

Bids Overview

When you send a transfer to @smartsteem, you're bidding on a share of @smartsteem's vote. Initially, we redirected our users to steembottracker to monitor the current bids & to check the last round.

But due to the recent changes in payout, the calculations from steembottracker became inaccurate, so we decided to implement it ourselves at Smartsteem.com/bid.

That way, we're also able to implement features ourselves. For example, when a round reached its limit, bids will be added to the next round and displayed like that (or refunded if the next round is full as well).

What's next?

While the recent changes & improvement are already amazing, we're not slowing down. Over the next few weeks, more improvements & features will be coming!

So make sure, you're following us and if you like - join us on discord: https://discord.gg/vSD7xgs

Thank you for reading!

Team Smartsteem