Hey everyone! I'd really appreciate your thoughts on something that's been on my mind recently. As some of you may know, the @worldmappin project has started paying curation rewards to its delegators who contribute at least 50 Hive Power. It’s not a new concept for projects or accounts to accept delegations, vote, and then return a portion of the rewards based on the delegated value. We've seen this practice on Hive and previously on Steem for a long time, and there are plenty of projects doing great work in this area.
Most of the projects I've looked at handle curation rewards by returning liquid funds from post payouts back to the delegators. Many of them even initiate a power-down to access more liquid funds. Earlier, I did a quick sample check on several curation projects to see where user funds are actually going. For a few projects, I noticed that the rewards are being sent, for example, to the Hive 2nd layer or even leaving the blockchain entirely via exchanges. Personally, I find this concerning and not a positive practice.
When funds exit the blockchain, especially through exchanges, it can weaken the overall Hive ecosystem. Ideally, curation rewards should stay within the ecosystem to help grow and reinforce Hive’s long-term value. In my view, curation projects should prioritize strengthening Hive’s ecosystem by either retaining funds in Hive Power or reinvesting within Hive's layers, rather than channeling them outwards.
Now, here’s my question – and I think it’s a fair one for all curation projects on Hive: Should we consider making rewards payable exclusively in Hive Power instead? I'd like to get a conversation going on this topic and outline some potential pros and cons for discussion (and this is by no means an exhaustive list!).
Pros:
- Liquid funds wouldn’t need to be paid out, allowing delegating accounts to accumulate Hive Power over time.
- Reduced selling pressure on the market, as fewer tokens would be leaving the blockchain.
- Potential for more HBD to be converted into HIVE.
- Delegators could build up their own Hive Power, which they could then redelegate to the project, creating a cycle that benefits the curation project.
- Any other pros? Feel free to add them in the comments!
Cons:
- Delegators would lose some flexibility with access to liquid funds.
- Slightly higher technical complexity to implement.
- Liquid rewards would need to be converted to HIVE and then sent to the user as Hive Power (essentially a power-up to another user), which is manageable but a minor drawback.
- Any other cons? Let’s discuss them in the comments!
To be clear, technically, it is possible to pay curation rewards in Hive Power, through a vesting transfer, for example.
I’d love to hear your thoughts – do you think it makes sense to pay delegation rewards exclusively in Hive Power? Or do you prefer the flexibility of liquid rewards? Keep in mind that Hive Power comes with a 13-week lock-in period. Let’s dive into this debate together!
Wow, that's something I'd never thought of. We have projects that pay a little bit of everything, L2 tokens, liquid hive, hbd, but paying directly in hive power is something that would be new. I vote yes, but I think it's always good to leave all the options available, the more options the better for us.
Now, one thing to note: it might not make sense to delegate HP to receive in HP, because then you would have to calculate whether the delegated HP wouldn't help to get more curation rewards than the return for delegating it. I don't know if I explained it correctly.
Now, maybe delegating some L2 token and receiving in HP would be a really cool experiment to test, maybe it could even be a new concept in the future for some healing profiles to work like this.
Well, IDK how it is right now, I was /afk from Hive for a long time, but "to delegate HP to receive in HP" doesn't sound new at all, it was a pretty common thing back then. Yes, keeping undelegated HP for your own use could often "yield" more - if you could be active, have content to post, keep up with the flow and recent buzz, and so on - but when you could not, then delegating HP and getting even like 70-90% instead of 0% due to inactivity sounds great, right? So it showed up very fast and I think I saw pools and bots providing that ever since I first created account :) I think it got waay less popular since tokens and hbd-savings >10% went live. "Passive income" was always a very alluring idea, doubly so if easily liquifiable, and HP never was and always were a long-term thing..
Ahh yes, the part about calculating whether it would be worth delegating HP to receive HP is really for someone who is active, voting every day, either manually or automatically, so if you are voting and your VP is always moving, it may be better to keep the HP for yourself.
Now for an inactive person, it really is worth delegating, because that way your HP will work better and have a greater chance of having a high return. Passive income is something I have been looking for too, in fact I increase my HP with the return of posts, and HBD has been multifunctional.
I buy L2 tokens with it, a little Hive Power UP, another amount in savings to yield and use as a reserve fund and I avoid powerdown at all costs, I really want to grow more and more around here.
I'm fine with both options. On the other hand, I build my stake while many people keep taking their profits. And those would prefer liquid Hive over HP.
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Rewards like Hive Power sound great, but in my opinion, they would be almost the same as following the account through a trail.
If that were the case, I would just set up a trail and win the same or even more if the delegatee doesn't return 100% of the rewards.
Stayoutoftherz actually gave the prizes out in Hivepower in the Hivechess tournament S18 (that's last season).
I'm suprised I haven't seen this more often.
I think it is a great way to grow together. I see that a trail would probably have the same effect if not even more because I get 100% out of it. However, still, if I leave out the effectiveness and go to the group/community aspect, I love the idea of giving something and then growing together in a healthy way for the ecosystem. So - It might have similar effects but feels different <3 - Liquid has its charme yes, but only if its HBD.. I don´t like that other projects give back their own tokens for it... e.g.
I think more people need to put a focus on powering up, so this is a great idea.
I hadn't thought about that way of paying delegation rewards because it doesn't make much sense to me, it would be better then if they followed the account healing trail with the percentage that the users want. But you are still right about the destination of these funds, it is a good topic to think about and debate.
Voted for liquid Hive as reward considering the flexibility aspect of it.
And @eddiespino made a good point in the comments below.
Nice article and quite interesting. Greetings for today and may the best for all of us.