This is a very fast post because this came up today in a comment. Don't worry about the numbers, it is the idea that needs to be understood really.
Imagine your vote is worth 10 cents today which is ~5000 SP. That 5000 SP creates these things called Vests and it is they that are actually doing the vote calculations. Vested interest is your stake in the platform, your voice, your vote, etc.
Okay, so 5000 SP is approximately 10,000,000 vests 10MV (crypto people like lots of zeroes)
So, you vote today at 100% (all 10,000,000 vests) and your vote is worth 10 cents.
Overnight , the Gods of Crypto grant Steem a 100x increase in price. That moves your vote in a straight line 100x larger meaning a 10 cent vote is now worth 10 dollars.
However, the Vests remain identical and are still sitting at 10MV.
Now tell me, do your voting habits change when you have a 10 dollar vote? Previously you were voting comments at 20% to make sure they got above the dust threshold but, are you willing to vote them at 2 dollars?
Remember, the Vests are the things doing the voting so when you were voting at 20% and it was worth 2 cents, you were voting with 2MV (2,000,000) vests. Now, you might say that you want to reward more than the 2 cents still but 20 cents for a comment is plenty considering. While a 20 cent vote has a fiat value 10x larger than yesterday, it is actually only using 200,000 vests meaning it is 10x smaller in Steem distribution. Understand?
So, what does this mean?
When price drops it is common that people increase the size of their votes according to the fiat value of something meaning they are using more vests to vote and therefore distributing larger amounts of Steem. When the price increases, they tend to wind back their vote percentage meaning they use less vests and therefore distribute less Steem per vote. In low price ranges they consolidate their votes, at high price points the spread them across more votes.
This is why I say that no matter the price of Steem, it is always a good time to earn it and when prices are low, it is even better. Well, it is better if you are the kind of account that gets supported after the consolidation of voting. Generally this means that you offer something to the community that enough people recognize has value (or you are part of a circle jerk).
I whipped up this chart to demonstrate my SP growth over the last 2 years. It was pretty difficult to workout how to get the numbers back to the dawn of account time - but I am clever like that.
(Thank you @abh12345)
As you can see in the middle there, it is a pretty steady climb which is because I was both consistently producing and getting consistent support. At the start of January 2018 I would often enough have a few 90 -100 dollar posts because Steem price was at the ATH levels of 8 before the steady decline. Very, very steady decline. This meant that my SP growth was steady no matter the price of Steem. Remember why?
Yep, because vests do the voting, not price. And it is likely that I was earning a bit more even because there was less competition in the content pool and more consolidation of vested voting. Get it now?
So, when price goes up significantly, those votes that you are happily taking are likely to reduce in percentage somewhat, especially on the quality of your content. While a picture or shitpost might happily take 2 dollars now, not many people are willing to put 200 dollars on it. And if you have been shitposting all of this time because "it just wasn't worth it", you might have lost some very valuable support for your future or, missed out on gaining some.
Now, while Steem isn't going to go 100x overnight or anytime soon, I used that as an easy example. However, let's say it does do that. What that means is that 1 dollar post today is worth 100 dollars tomorrow. A one dollar post today is a 100% vote with 100MV (100,000,000 vests) or a 50,000 SP account, give or take. Do you think that that same account would be happy voting on your post at 100% if their vote was worth 100 dollars? Unlikely right? if it was worth 50 dollars? 30 dollars? Well, if Steem hits 8 dollars again (I am confident) that 50k SP account will have a vote of 30 dollars. Oh, whether their vote is 1 dollar or 30 dollars, the number of vests doesn't change which means that the amount of Steem distributed is exactly the same.
If you would be happy getting a 30 dollar vote from that account, you should be happy getting a 1 dollar vote from them now. Very happy because most likely, they will adjust their percentage later and vote with less vests which means, you are earning more Steem now - more future value and a higher rate of investment potential. in that scenario, a 1 cent vote is worth a dollar, a 10 cent vote 10 dollars and a 10 dollar vote is equal to 1000 dollars.
Yep, not anytime soon.
What some see as low value now is what I see as their missed opportunity to build something of high value for the future. In my opinion though, no matter the price of Steem, shitposting is unlikely to help you make the cut through the consolidation phases of falling price. Add value to earn value.
You can still have fun, still learn, still play - No matter the price.
I hope this helped some people get a basic understanding of the vests and voting mechanisms.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
edit: I will add a link to Asher's post where he can make a chart for you if you ask nicely there in a comment:
https://steemit.com/steem/@abh12345/steem-power-growth-chart-hack