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This is incorrect.

The author's cut is divided by 2 not 4 ( 50 / 50 )
One half ( of its US$ value ) is paid in sp, the other in sbd.

On top of that, some witnesses publish a 'bias' which means instead of getting the US$ quote for 1.000 STEEM to calculate the payouts, they calculate based on for example 1.2 STEEM ( 20 % bias ) and calculate your SBD payouts accordingly.

This will effectively give you more SBD than were shown in the 'payout'.
The idea is to stabilize the price by minting more coins to meet the demand.

"One half ( of its US$ value ) is paid in sp, the other in sbd."

The current value of STEEM is about a third of SBD. I always get 3/4s of the number in SBD and 1/4th SP.

The current value of STEEM is about a third of SBD. I always get 3/4s of the number in SBD and 1/4th SP.

That is coincidence. If you select 50 / 50, it is 50 / 50.
However, my explanation above doesn't make much sense, now that I have read it again ...

If the payout shows 10 $ after taking off the curator's cut, then you will get:

5 US $ worth of SP
5 SBD (+some extra because some witnesses publish a 'biased' feed at the moment)