Good question! I think someone asked the same in response to the first post as well.
The numbers are the Vests distribution itself, on a daily basis, so whomsoever may be powering up and down is directly accounted for. Even so, it's a negligible factor anyway, as the powering down process is very slow and takes 104 weeks, far beyond the scope of this time period.
I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean here. If, on a given day, a minnow powers up 5000 Steem Power, they'd get around 18.3M VESTS, correct? That's not a content creation or curation distribution, but a financial one, right? If, on that same day, a whale finishes the first distribution of a power down which began 7 days before (for example, Ned could have powered down $700k in value each week, at one point), then their VEST amount would decrease (again, not related to curation or creation of content). Though the overall power down process takes 104 weeks to fully complete, the weekly impact of a large account powering down is significant enough to matter, right?
Sorry if I'm still missing something there. Thanks for answering my questions! :) I've been thinking about this stuff in terms of who is cashing money out at exchanges and who is putting money in. If the financial side of things end up being more significant than the curation/creation reward side of things, that's important for us all to know about.
Ah, I see what you mean. These numbers aren't just about content creation or curation - It's the overall impact. Whether someone increases their Steem Power holding through rewards or powering up is irrelevant - their votes will still carry the same weight.
Perhaps you are looking for statistics regarding exactly how much influence is flowing directly from the whales to the minnows and the life? I'm afraid I don't know how to track that - perhaps someone can devise an automated tool to do so. I think each account's activity will need to be tracked individually to get a precise picture. That's a different topic though!
Ah, I see. I incorrectly thought you were addressing power redistribution instead of just distribution. I get that now.
Since I already typed this out, I'll just include it, but I see what you mean now that it's a separate discussion:
When discussing redistribution, it can only happen in three ways, as far as I understand:
When analyzing the overall distribution, I think it's important to clarify which aspects are impacting it the most. If we create the picture, for example, that curation and content rewards are the primary driver of redistribution, and later we find out powering up and down (again, I don't know if that's the case, just giving an example) is far more significant, then I feel that's an important aspect of the redistribution discussion. Incomplete information could lead to incorrect expectations and, ultimately, frustration.
I hope someone can track that activity overall so we can have a better picture of how the money moves around over time given the various inputs to redistribution.
Thanks again for your answers and this great post!
It is relevant when you put forth theories about who is gaining or losing share and why. Are dolphins gaining due to rewards or buying in (powering up of SBD is some combination of these two)? Is the slowdown in orcas due to a slow down of reward earnings or have they stopped investing or increased power downs? These are all interesting and relevant questions. Not disagreeing that just the distribution numbers on their own are potentially important, but many times they raise more questions than they answer.
I don't know if I agree it is a negligible factor. The changes in all of these groups are small, roughly 1-2%. Power down is 1% per week so could account for a good chunk of that. Power up is not at a set rate.
I agree that for the whales tier, this is not a negligible factor, particularly since many are powering down. In fact I did investigate which whales are powering down, and determined the effect is roughly ~0.05% per day or ~0.4% per week for the tier.
The point though is that this is about overall Steem Power distribution - and powering down is just another way the distribution changes.
Like you point out in the other reply, it would certainly be interesting to see what the exact breakdown is - how much of it is due to powering up/down, author rewards and curation rewards? This is not something I have the data for, and will probably need an automated tool of some kind, which is way above my pay grade to create. :) All I can do right now is see how the overall distribution is changing. By "irrelevant", I didn't mean irrelevant in general, but just irrelevant specifically to this being about overall distribution trends.
Also, the changes are pretty drastic in some cases. For example, the minnows have gone up by 35% in the last 2 weeks. Sure, they are still only 2%, but a rise from 1.4% to 1.9% is pretty significant within their own niche.
Thank you for your inputs!