Thank you professor @sapwood for your wonderful teaching on Steem token Unit, reputation and author/curator ratio. This post will answer the questions that you asked us after your class.

Let start by giving a little introduction to what STEEM Blockchain is all about. STEEM blockchain is a social Blockchain that stores write-up content and has an inbuilt mechanism that rewards the content curators and authors with its cryptocurrency.

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Now let go to the questions

Question 1: What is STU? What is the break-up of STU? Take a real example to indicate the STU and calculate the different rewards that Author and Curators generated from your last Post Payout? (Screenshot required)

Steem Token Unit (STU) is the name used to represent the payout in the steem blockchain. Another way we can say it is that STU is the name given to the three steem tokens that are released on the steem blockchain.

These tokens are

1. STEEM: which is the liquid form of the token what are used by traders or users for short term trade, it can be bought or sold in an open money market.
2. STEEM POWER (SP): this is a token that vests for holders, this token is used for long term investment into the blockchain. This SP can be converted to STEEM tokens after seven days of powering down and also STEEM tokens can be converted to STEEM power when power up takes place. Every time STEEM currencies are generated, 15% of these generated tokens are shared to the STEEM Power holder in form of SP as a return for having Steem power on the blockchain.
3. STEEM Dollars (SBD): this token was designed to be pegged to USD, although recently the value of 1SBD has increased beyond 1USD. SBD can also be converted to STEEM tokens.

Now, let look at the example of my past post payout to calculate the author and curators rewards

From this post

The past payouts = $36.70, 31.43 TRX
Author = $18.35, 15.72 TRX
Curators = $18.34, 15.71 TRX

Our attention will be on the Steem Token Unit (STU) generated in the post, not on the TRX.

According to our class, we were told that from Steemdb.io the SBD_print_rate is 100% so in that case, the post will also give its author reward in SBD and SP since the post was set as 50% SBD / 50% SP

Author Reward

50% of $18.35 = $9.175 will go to STEEM Dollar. In that case, the post will generate 9.175 SBD.

To calculate the SP received from the post

Let make use of the current feed price from https://steemscan.com/witnesses which is $0.56

Steem Power (SP) = (50% × $18.35) / $0.56
SP = 9.175 / 0.56
SP = 16.38

The Author reward is 9.175 SBD and 16.38 SP

Curators Reward

The curators receive their reward in Steem Power. So using the feed price of $0.56 let us calculate what the curators will receive

From the same past post payout

Curators = $18.34

So the curators reward in SP = $18.34/$0.56
SP = 32.75

The Steem Power shared among the curators is 32.75.

Question 2: Indicate the Raw reputation score of your Steem Account and calculate your Reputation? Cross-check it with the Reputation score displayed in Steemworld.org?

Raw reputation score of my Steem Account

From https://steemd.com/@dprogress I checked my raw reputation score which is 65,137,283,888,961

To calculate my reputation

Making use of the formula given to us in the class

Reputation= [(Log10(Raw Reputation Score) - 9) × 9] + 25

Reputation = [( Log10(65,137,283,888,961) - 9) × 9] + 25

Reputation = [(13.8138296453 - 9) × 9] + 25

Reputation = [(4.81382964528) × 9] + 25
Reputation = 43.3244668076 + 25
Reputation = 68.3244668076

The reputation score displayed in Steemworld.org

Reputation = 68.324

If we look at the two reputation score and compare it we will discover that the calculated reputation score and the reputation shown on Steemworld.org is the same.

Question 3: What percentage(of the Post Payout) was generated as liquid rewards(SBD) from your last Post in terms of USD equivalent? Explain how the rise of SBD has shifted the supply dynamics? As per your last post payout calculate the ratio of Author : Curator Reward in terms of USD equivalent?

This screenshot above shows my last payout post from my account

Past payouts = $29.06, 24.72 TRX
Author = $14.53, 12.36 TRX
Curators = $14.53, 12.36 TRX

Since the post was set to 50% SBD / 50 % SP
Then the SBD generated was 50% of $14.53 = 7.265

Note: that the total post payout is $29.06

The percentage of the post payout that was generated as Steem Dollar (SBD) = (7.265/29.06) × 100 = 25%

The 25% of the payout post which is 7.265 SBD is given as part of the author reward and as of the time I was writing this post, one Steem Dollars (SBD) is equivalent to $ 6.80 which is a great rise compared to what it was intended to be which is 1SBD = 1USD.

So the USD equivalent of 7.265 SBD = (6.80 * 7.265 )

= 49.402 USD

The rise in SBD has shifted the supply dynamics in the sense that one I SBD can approximately buy 11.936 Steem. This had led to an increase in the supply of Steem which can affect the price negatively because the Selling rate will increase more than the buying rate because many users will have more liquid Steem at hand to sell.

To calculate the Steem Power (SP) received by the author and Curators

Still using the feed price of $0.56, the number of Steem Power (SP) that the Author will receive is (7.265/0.56) = 12.973

For the Curators the number of Steem Power (SP) received is (14.53/0.56) = 25.946

To calculate the percentage of the Author and Curators reward

The table below shows more details of the Author and Curators rewards and their equivalent USD. Note that we are still using 1SBD = $ 6.80 as of the time of writing this post.

From the table above

The percentage of the Author reward equivalent in USD = (56.667/71.197) × 100
= 79.592%

Percentage of the Curators reward equivalent in USD = (14.53/71.197) × 100
= 20.408%

The Ratio of Author:Curator Reward is 79.592 : 20.408

Question 4: Explain how & why an initiative like # club5050 can shift the demand/supply dynamics in favour of STEEM?

The # club5050 initiative aims at encourage every member of the Steem community to power up 50% of their payout liquid Steem Dollar(SBD) or Steem. This initiative will not only help individuals to increase their investment in the platform but also their influence in the Steem ecosystem will increase too. By doing this, more Steem tokens are invested into the ecosystem rather than sending them out of the Steem blockchain which will further help to make the value of Steem appreciated.

The more Steem is withdrawn from the blockchain the more the value of Steem will depreciate which will not help the blockchain generally.

Just like supply and demand affect the price of any community the same also goes for the price of steem

The more the users on the steemit platform power up by keying into this initiative of # club5050 the more it will reduce the selling rate of Steem and the Steem available in the market.

If the supply of Steem is higher than the demand then the price will fall but if the supply is less than the demand in the market then the price will increase which is one of the factors that determine the value of any token.

Question 5: Consider a user having a reputation lower than you, upvotes your Post-- Does it affect the Payout and increase the Rep? If the same user goes for a downvote, does that affect your Payout and Reputation both? Explain Why & How; with Examples?

Upvote

It's important to note that new STEEM tokens is been generated all the time and this generated STEEM from inflation is called the rewards pool. Every time a user on steem Blockchain clicks on the upvote button, the user is saying that he or she wants a particular amount of the daily rewards pool to go to a particular post. Your Steem power on the blockchain determines the amount of Steem you can direct by your upvote.

When a user with a lower reputation than you upvote your post, it will increase the payout depending on the user's Steem Power, and the voting weight and at the same time it will have a positive increase on the reputation. The higher the Steem Power and the voting weight of the upvoter the higher the increase it will have on my payout and reputation.

Downvote

When a user clicks on the downvote button, the user is saying that a particular amount of rewards on a post should be removed and moved back to the rewards pool. This action affects the payout and the reputation also. The degree of the reward removed depend on the Steem Power and the voting weight of the user.

But in a case where the user downvoting has a lower reputation than the account he or she is downvoting, the downvoting action will not affect the reputation of the account he or she is downvoting although it will affect the payout.

For example, Account A with a reputation of 65 publish a post on the steemit platform. Account B of reputation 60 and Account C of reputation 69 both downvote the post with a weight of 50.

What will happen?

Account B downvoting will not affect the reputation of Account A because 60 < 65

While

Account C downvoting will reduce the reputation of Account A because 69 > 65.

Conclusion

Powering up your liquid Steem is a good way of investing in Steem blockchain which in turn help to have a good return on the Steem Power or Curation and keep the ecosystem going because the tokens will appreciate. The initiative of # club5050 will go a long way in getting more users to power up their liquid Steem and reduce the supply of the Steem to the market.

@sapwood