Steemit (the website Steemit.com) is reporting based on the blockchain, which is reporting higher than it should be.
Some bots are using the blockchain feed and using this data to calculate votes inaccurately.
What you see on Steemit.com is all a UI issue, nothing is paying out incorrectly, it's just displaying incorrectly. But bid bots is a different story, they need to have an accurate price feed to calculate votes properly.
Anything you just got paid out on, happened 7 days or more ago when the problem was just being identified (It started happening around 2-3 weeks ago).
So the bottom line is...
We are getting paid as if Steem is worth 40 cents
But if we buy or sell Steem...the current market value is @23.5 cents now
Is that correct?
You are getting paid what the upvotes you receive are worth. The site is reporting that incorrectly.
So the payouts are inflated and the Steem value is inflated?
Yes but it is all a UI bug the amount you get isn’t broken. It is just displaying incorrect values.