I'm not sure if it's a benevolent whale really. I too am doubtful of the Tether-escape motivation by now.. overpaying by 12x just doesn't fit that bill.
A benevolent whale taking the hit at 12x loss just out of benevolence seems unlikely too, to be honest.
I think the real reason will be revealed over time. However, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody had found some kind of loophole to 'print' money and drive up the price somehow. Maybe some smart programmer figured out a way to milk the reward pool more than one person should, and use those profits to pump up the prize to increase the rewards in $ even more?
I mean.. there is something weird about the fact that I can give an upvote both $1 and in return I get $1.50.
Somebody abusing this on a grand scale (the owner of the upvote bot could maybe) ... well, who wouldn't want a machine that prints money at 50% profit? I've always had this nagging feeling at the back of my head that there's something not quite right about the whole system... In some ways it's almost too easy to make money on Steemit. A botnet could abuse it big time.. but maybe nobody notices when we all have our rewards increased by 12x anyway
"A botnet could abuse it big time"
This was the reason for having exponential, instead of linear, voting rewards on Steemit originally. That changed with HF 19.
" I've always had this nagging feeling at the back of my head that there's something not quite right about the whole system"
Yes, as have I. The game theory is not aligned with the desired community behavior, which is why I wrote Code Is Law.
Hey! You're back! For a while I thought you got so disheartened that you left, or something!