The Armchair Economics of @randowhale
Randowhale was born recently. In response to vote buying equity 'whaleshares'.
What is @randowhale?
You basically send 2sbd or 2steem to @randowhale with the URL of your post and receive a whale vote from 1 to 50%.
Given the current voting power of randowhale this seems to be a (clear) profitable thing to do over time if your post is above 40 dollars or so.
It's not much of a gamble right now, it's a rational investment decision.
One of the issues with having a whale sized amount of SP is that you need another whale to come after you, forgoing curation rewards, passing them to the initial whale - there is therefore no incentive for them to do this from a financial perspective.
Randowhale locks in what would be curation rewards and also gives the blogger a chance to profit. It's a win/win.
Who created it?
Where do I see this going?
Given a market of rational people I would expect the randowhales voting power to decrease to the point where the average vote adds around 2sbd to the payout. A real gamble, if people are rational, then an actuarially fair bet.
This is a much more complex decision however, due to the n squared algorithm. Not all votes are equal, a randowhale vote on a 5k post will add significantly more than a randowhale vote on a 10 dollar post.
Will we reach a steady state?
I see a few things potentially happening.
Randowhale will have a 'day of rest' every now and then... to recuperate voting power OR there will be a dynamic shift in voting power based on the current value of the post. As higher valued posts will have a significantly larger chance of making a profitable bet.
Only posts that have less than x in rewards will be able to participate. This would incentivize early randowhale voting, increasing the curation rewards of randowhale and stop those with already high payouts from participating.
The price or voting percentage will adjust to maximize profitability. Keeping a relatively high voting power and a high enough price for people to rationally act
Evolving further with a shift to a more linear rewards curve...
From Tuesday this week there will be a hardfork that makes rewards more linear. There will be less of a pile on effect and posts going exponentially higher in payout value. How will this affect randowhale?
I personally think it will shift more into a pure gambling service and eventually tend to a steady state where only high valued posts will be profitable. It may actually turn into a promotion tool too as the rational demand may outstrip the voting power supply. To put it simply, a new user that wants to get some exposure with a whale vote may vote a very low value post so they are noticed and can snowball a following on steemit.
Implications
It's exciting to see these new services developed that provide demand for steem dollars. I hope to see many more in the future. At the moment these simple but innovative initiatives are what will drive the network effect of Steemit forward. An eBay version of Steemit, or a place where people can trade services like fivver. Maybe somewhere a services economy can develop.
All these ideas are fun and would build up the network effect however they wouldn't reduce the liability of the rewards pool and the investments that Steemit is bootstrapping.
What I'd like to see is randowhale and other services for the Steem economy tie in with revenue generation. Something as simple as sending 1% of funds generated to the @null account to be burnt. This way we have a win/win/win situation, better rewards for bloggers, better curation for randowhale and a reduction in the supply of SBDs, increasing the value of Steem indirectly.
Once we get to this point, of burning based on demand, we start to see a more sustainable, revenue based model.
That's when Steemit gets a step closer to World Domination.
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Let me understand this, upvoting is the single activity one can perform to curate content. Those with more SP have a larger affect on curation. Curation is meant to surface better content and reward those who found it with curation rewards.
So, randowhale completely breaks the intent and purpose of curation. Cool. I'll just go develop a curator marketplace where everyone can just buy votes from their favorite whale for the best bid. That'll make steemit a better place.
Looking at it from one angle I agree with you. However when it comes to getting exposure for new users trying to get a foothold, something like randowhale could have much more beneficial long term benefits.
Also, I mean this is a free market. It's something that's developing over time - what I'd really like to see is the burning of revenue generated from services as I wrote in the conclusion.
It feels like a hack of the upvote and curation system to do something it's not intended to do. If someone wants exposure and is willing to part ways with some steem for it, that's what the Promoted page is for.
Except @randowhale is not doing any actual curating. It's an automated bot that gives you a possibly valuable upvote after you pay for it. That's not what I understand the upvote action to be for.
Burning revenue would definitely be a good thing, but let's not build things that circumvent the original purpose of a feature. It muddys the water
You say that's what the promoted page is for, but that page is a waste of investment. Who goes to that page? And it costs so much to be at the top that you have to have a high ticket offer to even breakeven from the extra maybe 50 people who see that post. Maybe if the promoted posts were mixed in with the regular posts like facebook newsfeed ads then more people would use them.
This comment has received a 0.13 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @brendanwenzel.
The thing is though, if it can be done, It will be done.
It's mostly profitable now but as I touched on, it will become a gambling vote. Which has value, just another service in a developing economy.
Nice sharing! And I think you point out the main point is aboutr gambling. Yes, how much can you get back from the 2SBD? I first heard randowhale is a the very first few days when I join steemit. And I don't have a choice to choose try or not. As I don't even have 2 SBD at that moment and I'm not too curious to have a try now, as yes, it more on gambling than a investment.
Sometimes the randowhale has a bug where it doesn't upvote the content i give it..
Ive lost 2 or 4 sbd now but I guess the bot has its hard times too.. Overall good initiative and verry helping.
Cheers and much love
-Goldie
if that ever happens, just drop him a message. rando's always made people whole if a glitch caused him to miss a vote!
I think you are correct for a smaller valued post it doesn't help.
I've tested it out and I did earned but it didn't cover the 2SDB :( @randowhale 2SBD Investment Result
I was EXTREMELY disappointed when I hit "max" instead of typing 2SBD and lost 75SBD. I was enjoying using @randwhale...but now have a sour taste. @blocktrades refunded money incorrectly sent and I think it is only fair.
@onetree I will be sending you back your SBD. I apologize for not seeing this before now and not noticing the transaction.
I am very grateful and humbled by your kindness. You are a good person and I like using your (again!( kind service you have provided. I will be using some of those funds to "randowhale" (you are now a verb!) some family and friends.🌺
I posted about this a bit over a week ago, along with a bunch of examples. It's really not worth doing it for posts with very little payouts, which ironically helps it become more "self-regulating".
Link: The "SECRET" to properly summoning randowhale and Whaleshares to MAXIMIZE your ROI!
If you write a post that gets some "viral" attention on STEEMIT (as you wrote, lots of votes and $40+ payouts), though I'd say even that may be borderline on the low side, but at least still likely profitable, those are the posts worth considering for a randowhale or Whaleshares vote.
For example, @razvanelulmarin's post "The Trading Dojo #1" featuring you would be perfect, and even this post looks like it may catch enough traction to be worthwhile as well!
Of course, some of this is likely to change over the next few days with HF19 on Tuesday, so at least a "slight" reevaluation will likely be in order.
Brilliant post, I think you covered your statements really well with the examples. With more and more people joining it's going to get tougher for people to get their foot in the door, I think something like randowhale combined with genuine comments to others in your field of posting could give a benefit above and beyond just the financial bet.
For instance a post with just a few dollars payout is probably significantly more exposed than one with a few cents.
With the HF coming, I think everything will change and it will be closer to an actuarially fair bet quantitatively. However when considering the qualitative affects such as more exposure - the actual result may be far more difficult to predict.
Thanks for your comment :)
Also, great to bump into another trader :D
figured you'd catch that, so didn't bother mentioning it! must be a "trader thing"! lol
Regarding the exposure bit, while there's a slight chance for more visibility, I really haven't found much evidence to support that assertion. In fact, if you check out a few of @vinnu's recent posts, he tried rando on some very low payout posts (< 5 bucks), and it really didn't have much of an effect at all. Of course, one only got a 1% randowhale payout, but on a $100+ post, it may have still turned out okay.
Perhaps a better way of looking at it from a trader's perspective, momentum begets momentum, and once you "catch a bid", the whale vote bumps it up even more, and any additional momentum might really send it parabolic! Well, something like that, at least! lol
As for gaining traction, I still find (as you also said) genuine comments and positive interaction with others on STEEMIT may be a newbie's most powerful tool, achievable by anyone willing to put in the time and effort.
You're post was awesome :)
Thank you @stackin, glad you found our posts helpful! :)
Let's see if HF19 changes it :)
This post received a 14% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @wingz! For more information, click here!
Followed/upvoted/agreed! Love everything about this post. Nice work. Well said! 👨🏻🏫
Thanks!
Congratulations @wingz!
Your post was mentioned in my hit parade in the following category:
I hope the person with that burning $100 put it out quickly. Still can be traded in at the bank if it is over 50% intact!