Every now and then, when you attend a Steemit meet-up, you will likely hear other steemian asking why is their upvote value is so low, for eg; 0.001 only compared to other people? The senior steemians will normally tell you, "you should power up in order to to increase your upvote value!!!"
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So What is Powering Up?
Powering up - If you have STEEM tokens, you can Power Up to Steem Power to get more voting influence on posts and comments. Having more Steem Power also increases the amount of curation rewards and interest that you can earn. More SP also grants more influence on approving Steem witnesses.
How To Power Up?
Here's step-by-step guide on how to power up:
- Go to your "Wallet"
- In your "Wallet", find your "Steem Dollar". In this screenshot, it shows that I have $5.914.
Click on the little triangle next to your Steem Dollar and you will find a drop-down menu. Click "Market"
- In order for you to power up, you must first buy "STEEM". In the "Buy Steem" section, enter the amount of Steem Dollar that you want to exchange for Steem.
- In my case, I will use all the Steem Dollar available to exchange for Steem. Once you've decided the amount of Steem Dollar that you want to exchange, click "Buy Steem"
- Then, confirm your order by clicking "OK"
- You will need to enter your password to confirm your transaction.
Note: Remember to always use your Active Key/Active Password when doing any transaction in Steemit. Not sure what is Active Key? Read about this important note HERE.
- You will see a notification pop-up at the bottom of the "market page" indicating that your order has been placed. That also means that your transaction is successful.
- Now, go back to your "Wallet", go to "Steem" and you will see the balance of Steem available. If you see the printscreen earlier on, I only have 10.001 Steem. Once transaction is done, I now have 15.924 Steem.
It's time to Power Up! Once again, click on the little triangle next to your steem and you will see a drop-down menu. Click **"Power Up"**.
- At this stage, you will need to put the amount of Steem that you wish to convert to "Steem Power". In this case, I will convert 5 steem to steem power. Once done, simply click "Power Up"
- Lastly, confirm your transaction by keying in your Active Key and wallllaaaaa... you have powered up your account!
I have been to few meet-ups and basically all newbies are advised to set a goal to accumulate a minimum of 500 Steem Power (SP) the soonest possible.
Why 500 SP? By accumulating 500 SP, your votes will become stronger. The more SP you have, the more profitable and stronger your votes become. Also, by accumulating 500 SP, you will unlock and gain access to the "Vote Slider Bar" function where you can determine how much weightage/value of a vote you want to give to one particular content. Isn't that great?
When you have more than 500 SP, you will also earn MORE curation rewards by simply upvoting good contents. If your SP is too small, your votes will be too small to be counted.
Another thing is that, when you have more than 500 SP, you can actually delegate the SP. Delegation allows you to lend your SP to other steemians and earn from it.
I guess that's about it for Powering Up... till then..
Xoxo,
@connie1018
Very clear instruction. Well done.
Thank you @wilsonkoh..
Thanks..
Most welcome @aphours..
Still learning and this one helps. Thank you 😊
Hi @maddie30.. thanks for dropping by and glad it helps! 😉
how can i buy steem without any balance in my steem dollar. Any other way to buy the steem? sorry i'm newbie here :)
Hi @riesaxon.. you can buy steem through:
Thank you so much @connie1018
Thanks @connie1018! A very helpful and concise guide! I've a question! Was wondering does the SP value decrease over time? I realised my upvote worth was about 0.01 then suddenly the next day it went down to 0.005
To add to @connie1018's explanation:
It's not your SP decrease, it is your VP (Voting Power).
If you would like a more graphical illustration, steemworld.org/@honjun88 would be a neater choice.
Looking at your account, because your SP is so low, it yields no effect on your voting. You only contributed a "thumbs up", while you are not helping the reader neither yourself (curation) in the long run.
Therefore, Connie's summary on the need to Power up and her illustration is very important for newbies like you. :)
Thanks @littlenewthings for the link! That helps to keep it in check. Previously I was using another site. So if I've powered up in the sense where my voting power is of higher value, because my SP is high, does the SP reduce in value over time? Due to lack of activity, etc? Hence my voting power also will reduce over time?
Hi @honjun88.. each time you place a vote, your voting power also decreases which causing the subsequent vote to be lesser and lesser. (The lesser your voting power, the weaker your upvote value).
You can check your voting power at steemd.com/@honjun88.. keep your voting power above 80% or limit to 10 upvotes per day for maximum effectiveness.
Your voting power recharges ony 20% per day, so imagine if you deplete your voting power, it can take longer time to recharge to 100% voting power. Golden rules is 'do not abuse ur upvote, as the more u upvote, the lesser ur voting power and the lesser ur upvote value.
Thanks! Yeah that's why I distribute my votes carefully
It is good to have the awareness to power up first rather of thinking cash out first as a long term investment (without even using your own money) for a bigger vision for your journey in the crypto world than fast money .
It is a win-win situation and if any emergency occurs, you can always power down and cash out and start over.
upvoted and resteemed
Thanks @littlenewthings for the additional info. Yes, my main goal now is to accumulate 500 SP the soonest possible.. thanks!!
And it works like an FD as well with consistent dividend that can be compound to help the community too.
Win-win!
Thank you... this post would have been useful to me 2 months ago.. but a very great read nonetheless
Thanks for dropping by.. we have newbies almost everyday. I hope this post will be useful for them.. 😉
This is definitely useful... and to explain to other newbies, I can just ask them to refer to your tutorial posts which are clear and concise...
Thank you for sharing your posts with us. This post was curated by TeamMalaysia as part of our community support. Looking forward for more posts from you.
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@connie1018, great sharing and thanks. How to get to 500SP as soon as possible other than the usual posting and commenting? Like what you had mentioned, the grow of SP and SBD for newbies are also fairly slow even you are persistent.
Hi @jacktan, other than the usual posting and commenting, you can also:
Buy steem through:
a)Converting your money to bitcoin or ethereum
b)Use your bitcoin / ethereum to buy Steem and then power up your steem power
Loan Steem Power through https://www.minnowbooster.net/market
I have yet to try both methods so unable to comment more on this.
@connie1018, much appreciated on the sharing and quick response. I had noticed on the cumbersome and hassle of the conversion of Bitcoin part which involve too many transaction fees. Perhaps I had some fund in PayPal and buy the steem from someone else would be faster?
Waaa...nice @connie1018.
Its good for newbies like me...
Thanx for the sharing...😍😍😍
Hi @zamifara.. glad to help.. 😉