KE Ratio: A Personal Perspective
The first time I came up with KE Ratio was in August of 2024. It has come a long way. Recently PeakD front-end kindly integrated with every hive users based on community request. I am deeply thankful and honored that community is finding the metric valuable. When I wrote the first post, I had no idea if anyone other than me will ever use it.
The goal of this post to do a personal reflection on how I am viewing this simple quantitative metric to understand the general behavior of a hive user. That was my original intent to design it and it remains the same. Again, as a recap:
KE = (Author Rewards + Curation Rewards)/Held HP
KE = 1.0, you hold exactly as you earn (approximately!)
KE > 1.0, you hold less than you earn
KE < 1.0, you hold more than you earn
Below are some of the key posts on KE, where you can see how I arrived at the current derivation of the ration from its original post linked at the first line.
https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@azircon/splinterlands-contest-posts-and-curation
https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@azircon/but-what-if-i-sold-hive-to-buy-sl-assets
Some of these posts had massive engagement in hive standards. That led to @beaker007 creating the beebalanced app! In fact, thanks to our original discussion and interaction on one of this posts on KE I first met beaker. He was instrumental to get the tool to the masses and especially curators who can use this ratio to analyse the long-term investment mindset of a hive user. Now the KE Ratio shows up right next to your Hive Reputation number. Also if you hover of the KE Ratio number it even shows you the current detail! For me:
Author Rewards = 30804 hive
Curation Rewards = 235719 hive
Staked (held) HP = 1093527 hive
KE Ratio = (30804+235719)/1093527 = 0.24
This is objective fact. It can be found for any hive users. It is profound.
How do I use KE and Reputation
For those who don't know Hive uses a number called Reputation, which is what you see next to your name. However, it is a derived number just like KE. There are two reputations:
Raw Score
Derived Score
You can check your raw reputation score here: https://hiveblocks.com/@azircon
Please replace my name with yours. In my case:
Raw Score = Reputation 634,124,980,050,379
Derived Score = 77.22
If you ask me how did I get 634 trillion to 77! I have the answer! :)
Derived reputation score = ((log10(abs(reputation))-9)*9)+25
Reputation score is calculated using the mathematical function Log base 10. It is easy to raise your reputation at the beginning, but the higher your reputation, the harder it is to increase it. In fact, each time you want to increase your reputation of 1 point, it is ten times harder! Since it is a log function, it is exponentially difficult to raise it from 77 to 78, compared to say 67 to 68, by ten times ten, 100 orders of magnitude! :)
Accounts with a low reputation cannot harm the reputation of someone with a higher reputation. This was designed so that say a bot with negative intention and low reputation can't harm the reputation of a community member with higher reputation. Thankfully that still works. Notice, anything I publish, even a comment gets downvoted by 10 to 13 accounts in automation, but they can't hurt my reputation!
The original intent of reputation was:
It is an indicator that shows how “trusted or appreciated by the community” you are.
It is a tool that prevent user with low reputation to harm other users.
However, no tool or ratio (yes, that includes KE) is perfect. So you need a human mind to analyze it. Clearly there have been many examples where a high reputation user is an major extractor. I have many examples in that category, but here are some
Thankfully most of them are gone, but a rare few are still leeching! Here is one:
You do the judgement if you are inclined to support an user with high KE or not. Most of the active community members have decided a cut-off of KE = 1 or KE = 3 is okay. Just as any cut-off there will be borderline cases, and you must use your personal judgement on how you vote. KE = 3 means the user have taken our 3X the rewards they have earned from hive. I consider that acceptable. We want people to use their hive earning, but just don't use it as a cash cow!
On a personal concluding note:
- an old account with high Reputation and high KE is far worse than a new account with low Reputation and high KE
- a low rep and low KE means either a dormant account or a holding account
- curation projects have high KE as they distribute their earning to delegators
I have published numerous plots on the subject, please feel free to look at them. However, above cartoon is a simplistic but easy to understand (I hope) view of the relationship between Reputation and KE. I think together they tell you a lot of a person's behavior towards long term investment in hive. If you have a high KE and you like to lower it, just power up some hive. It is extremely easy to do especially if your HP is low.
Having a low KE is an investment in yourself and hive community!
"and that gentleman is governing dynamics"
I’m not currently in a financial position to decrease my KE (lower number being better) ;) but I regret nothing about the “value” that I’ve extracted from HIVE (and the un-nameable that came before) over the ~9 ish years.
Most of it went to other projects on the blockchain … (an enormous amount went to Splinterlands) - and even less went into my own pocket.
As I’ve said before, the earnings from HIVE that I extract are for things that let me pour things back into HIVE. So while my KE may be high today, in time, with content and persistence, it will be low again.
Once I have a new job and more financial certainty in my life, who knows what may happen? :)
You shouldn’t have any regrets. I don’t. I have taken out plenty of hives and put it back again when I see fit. The process is dynamic and KE is a snapshot at present time. I wish we can track KE through time, but that would be a lot of server space!
A simple glance at your account will show that you produce quality and engage in chain. I can’t say that for 95% of the people at hive! :)
I have said quite vocally that I like it. For me it is just more information to inform the decision of voting for someone.
I think a lot of the detractors of the very idea of it fall into two camps. a) they have a high KE and aren't comfortable having it out there or b) They don't have a large stake therefore to them voting isn't such an issue.
There are of course exceptions to that and everyone is entitled to their opinion and rightly so.
I do find it amusing that now instead of complaining about downvotes some are upset that people might not get upvotes due to the KE info to hand. LOL!
There will always be drama about something
I don't mind a little drama myself! :)
Likewise 😀😀
People who are passionate about something will always produce some conflict. Not all conflict is destructive. Reasoned conflict can push people towards dialectic.
It can indeed but reasoned conflict online these days is a vanishingly small thing!
I learned about this KE metric in February, I don't remember exactly where. I know it was a link to your publication of January 24th.
An equation so simple and enlightening that it could become complex to understand. That's what discussions are for, today of course it's a fundamental tool.
The guys at @peakd have done an excellent job. I liked the initial (yellow) version better. But I understand that you have to be discreet. I don't understand why some people get upset about it. We have to take a stand, we're little men and we're in a decentralized network.
In this type of project there are always two attitudes: 1) those who want to make money now. 2) those who want to be in it for the long term, investing little by little (each with their own possibilities). Both are legitimate and deserve respect. That's why I don't see any reason to sulk about KE.
You have to understand, and respect, that those who want to be long-term see KE as something useful for deciding the percentage of their vote. It's not an exclusion. Given that there is a limit on the power (value) of the vote, it doesn't hurt that you choose to vote with a high percentage for those who have a low KE (who note that they are also in the long term). I repeat, it's not an exclusion. It's a choice.
However, there are exceptions. Few of them, given the general situation, deserve another analysis. Other metrics have to be taken into account.
I understand that there are people who need to power down for their primary survival goods, health or manage different projects at HIVE (which changes the KE value). But it's legitimate, they contribute their time and dedication. The withdrawal value is theirs, it has been earned. Therefore, their KE values deserve another look and interpretation.
Before we make any judgment, we should do some research. We're on a blockchain and here at HIVE everything is at hand. A few minutes and we're there. After all, didn't you do the same to reach your conclusions?
It's is totally a choice.
Also I want to make it clear that is information was always there, I just made it visible. Judgement is upto the user and a personal choice.
Do I personally judge people? Absolutely!
Do I make my voting decisions based on those judgments personally? Yes, and that's my choice and it is not up for discussion:)
I know it already existed. But it was the discussion that was launched that reached the attention of more users. Hence the importance of discussions.
I also started to adopt this reading/judgment, hence recognizing the importance of this tool.
Thanks a lot 🤝
I agree. That was my intent. A simple ratio is shining so much light on investment behavior that it’s phenomenal. I never thought it will be this successful!
There's always someone who has to put the iron in the forge.
When it is like this, we all benefit from it.
Research is the intention, even in Splinterlands. That's why beakers too also offers a glimpse at the ingame-assets that the player owns, so a curator can do a quick research when the KE is high. And yes, it should be done for everyone. It doesn't cost anything to put the question under the post of someone: "Hey, I like your content, but your KE is really high. Would you mind telling me why?"
Something like that. I'd prefer people asking that. And if the answer is coherent, maybe it's even a incentive to vote higher, e.g. to support a person going through a financial struggle and trying to make some money in whatever way.
Yes, if you have any doubts during the research, your suggestion is very interesting. There is this philanthropic part at HIVE. In these cases, we will always be here helping those who need it most.
We'll see! So far, I haven't found any interesting account that has a high KE. Most of the ones I find intriguing are the ones that are under 2. Only ghostlybg is higher, but he used all his HIVE funds for SPL, and is now starting to build his HP up again since he understood was KE was about. Also a case on how the rate can make people understand. For me, it did the other way - I found out that I could use HIVE to buy SPL assets, so I started taking a part out :-D
I've said to quite a few people already, KE is very useful but it's just one metric. It's naive and shallow to judge an account based on a single data point. There are many sides to look at an account to assess their behaviour and commitment to Hive, and one should always take a holistic view.
Agree. I designed KE for curators, especially SL curators, as a lot of SL posts were ripe with farming. I can claim that this simple tool improved a lot of behavior in that space.
I personally do not need a tool to judge a hive behavior. I am doing this for a very long time and just a glance at the post and wallet I can pretty much tell who is what :)
That said. I am curious to learn any specific examples that highlights the flaw in KE ratio. Please feel free to share.
The concept is a very good indication of people's confidence in Hive and how committed they are to build their account in the long run. Others have mentioned before that it doesn't take into account of liquid Hive and HBD, beneficiary rewards, L2 tokens or other Hive related assets. All these are still invested on Hive.
The KE is one of the many criteria I have used for Apis Hive, and there has been users who have proactively changed their behaviour to improve their KE. It works.
I have an idea, and hope @azircon sees it. We know how much Hive Power is in existence on chain at any point. Lots of other crypto projects have "big numbers" in what is Total Value Locked. Typically for liquidity pools, but do we ever use that as a marketing point for HIVE?
Sure, the "tvl" changes every day as people power up, down, claim rewards and do what they do, but it would be an interesting metric to publish to show overall confidence in our platform as a collective.
There would also be a great exercise in "quartiles" ie, which quartile is someone in for their rep - eg high rep, high ke, or low rep, low ke, or middling for both.
It is relatively easy to do :)
Not a bad idea either.
I have analyzed more than 8000 account. There is no statistically significant evidence that any users with abnormally high KE are holding a lot of HBD and still generating quality content.
Regarding L2 tokens that are blogging based, almost all are worthless shitcoins. So they do not add any meaningful value to the ecosystem. They are mostly net negative to hive. Otherwise you would be rich in lassecash! :)
Yes, I saw your presentation :) Seems like a small group of good people were present there and they were patient on you :)
I am so glad that people more than me recognise how pointless the various side chains and community tokens are. One, they have no real utility beyond memes; and they add pointless transactions to the chain.
Probably the same reason facebook got rid of pokes.
Yes. Without real utility tokens are pointless and net negative.
🤔
I am joking, that is what you said in the post and during your talk :)
😄
I have literally never heard of KE before or noticed it in the PeakD profile pages... but it looks like mine is 0.90 which seems okayish. Seeing those accounts you linked with literal thousands in their KE is pretty upsetting. I've always been frustrated with the mega-extractors (obviously everyone is).
0.90 is not okay, it is absolutely amazing!
I remember when you created the KE for Splinterlands, and it has made a very positive difference there as I read.
Now that the KE has arrived at Peakd, I've seen how the Spanish community has stirred quite a buzz around this topic. It's interesting to see how the community is addressing this issue, both to lower the numbers and to share opinions; that's good, regardless of the point of view. Another available statistic will never be a bad thing, but lately, if there’s no drama, it’s not Hive
I like the metric and everything behind it; I don’t use it because I do my activities from Ecency, but if they implement it in the future, it would be another tool
Where is KE shown in Splinterlands?
KE is shown in Peakd
Well I am glad. It absolutely did a major impact withing SL community.
It is not that the information was not there, it was, but it was never visible. Also no one ever designed a simple metric that can reflect a long term investment mindset. When you keep your hive powered up, you are investing in this platform and also yourself. That is your rainy day fund!
I totally identify with those words. Although I haven't been at it for long, I know that doing power-ups is the way to go.
Are you thinking about improving the concept of KE, or will you keep it simple?
I know the point is to keep it simple, but maybe after so much popularity, it could evolve
I think as a metric a simple number is better. Like your BMI. It’s not perfect but it’s simple
It's a very handy tool, has changed my voting patterns recently, a real time saver, and as you say in various comments people can choose to just ignore it if they like! HP is fundamental!
Not only it is my primary manual voting tool but also my “hive activist” leverage handle to improve people’s long term investment mindset in hive. I have been rather successful in this activism.
Excellent post. I am still working on my reputation 72.4 at this time, but my KE is good, not as low as yours but 0.74 seems solid :)
One question: Taraz recently said that doing 100% Power Up rewards instead of 50%/50% HP / HBD might somehow lower your KE below 1. That doesn't seem mathematically possible to me. Am I missing something with how things are converted on Hive or something? I know I bought some Hive and staked it and all my Witness rewards are always left as HP so those factors are lowering my KE, here is a weekly view:
100% power up will do a 100% better job compared to default 50-50 hive+HBD. Unless you say you convert every single HBD to hive and power up, then it will have the same effect.
Well I do the 100% powerup, what Taraz said is that there is some benefit to doing 100% powerup. He implied that if you do 100% powerups you can get better than KE=1. Which I don't understand how that would be possible? In fact if you take out HBD then convert it when Hive is Lower then when you got the payout then you could potentially get more Hive and if you stake more Hive than post paid out in HBD then you should be able to do better than KE=1. That is the only way I see you can stake more than you got in rewards, but I don't see it happening via 100% HP rewards, unless there is something I am missing.
Total rewards remains the same, if you convert all your HBD to hive and then power up. 100% power up is immediate and you don't loose any money on slippage. However, the difference is minor.
But say you started from scratch and you did 100% power up on all your author rewards and didn't add anything or take anything, wouldn't your KE = 1? You can't get that way to say 0.9 KE, right?
that is an interesting question :)
I don't think anyone has asked me this. The easy answer should be 1. But let me think about it. Can you point me to where Taraz said it?
Here I found that reply: https://ecency.com/category/@tarazkp/re-seattlea-sw6wve
Didn't know low rep account cannot hurt a high rep, good design. When you say KE = 3 is okay, does that mean, taking 75% of the rewards and holding 25% ?
lol, it’s far more lenient than that. KE equals total rewards given divided by HP. So a KE=3 means the person have taken out 3X the rewards than he/she is holding as HP.
That would be same as I said, isn't it ? Like I have taken 3000 (75%) hive and hold 1000 HP ?
Yes. It is :)
Thanks for the KE ratio. I have been a bit absent for a few weeks and saw it on my page. I'm glad to know the scale now.
You are welcome.
I feel pregty good for a sub 1 KE too
I like the addition of KE. It is a helpful tool. But it doesn't tell me if the user was forced to use up his stake by some emergency. So I don't just judge people just based on KE. If I see that he/ adds value by posting/ commenting I am still likely to upvote them despite them having a bad KE ratio. I remember checking KE of a few awesome artist. The KE was bad but I upvoted them anyway. But if a person is not posting anything and comments only to share others posts it starts looking bad because I am not sure if that adds any real value. I stopped voting a few of people like that. I am happy that I belong in the bellow 1 KE ratio club- mine is 0.86. Not as good as yours but I am still happy with it. My KE score would be even better if I converted my 1+k HBD to HP but I like gathering HBD as well as HP.
Voting is a personal choice. You can vote whoever you want and however much. As long as it is not abusive voting for personal gain, no explanation is ever required.
I guess I still need to keep working on mine! I think the addition of KE is nice, but some people have mentioned that they don't like it. Others have mentioned they don't really feel like it measures anything useful. I guess it is all subjective!
Interesting to note that those who don't like it are extractors with a high KE. Hmm...
I wonder why? 😜
Lol.
Yes, that is often the case. I do know a few who are heavily invested who just don't see the point of it, but we are all entitled to our opinion I guess.
People can feel whatever they want. I am not in charge of their emotional state :)
I think that most intelligent people will conclude that. And reputation should be used also for other 'not nice'stuff. For example if someone with rep 77 like you start making AI is different from a user around his 50's. In conclusion, reputation is just a measure to see if a user is old or new in the blockchain!
yes, agree.
I have 'unearthed' a lot such examples myself :)
I like this KE. When I reduce my KE by 100 times, I will pay attention to other users' KE.
yep, looks like you need to do power ups.
Thanks a lot for this explanation.
The first time I saw KE I was with doubts.
However, now I know what it means.
In my case I have 1.77 since in the past I need the funds due to some personnel issues.
Now, I focused to accumulate my HP and also my HE tokens investments.
Thanks a lot.
!BBH
No BBH needed :)
Also 1.77 is decent. A lot of regular hive poster do not have that.
I took a quick glance at your account. Your problem is NOT KE, it is lack on engagement. Nobody knows you exists, and you also stopped caring it seems. It typically goes hand-in-hand.
I give the BBH as an offer dor the great post.
I know that I have a lack of engagement.
During sometime I tried to make it better.
I really need to invest time on it.
Thanks a lot for your advice.
Sweet KE ratio brah!
Cheers!
Well I am just starting to digest this new Index. If the idea of this index is kind of measuring if a user has "consumed" more that he has "staked" in the platform well, I guess some other params should be taken into account like:
And just to quote a few!
But I guess the more important would be what about time and effort? What about the content the user has given for the platform even when this content has been underrated, like all the new users and I include myself because I have been there many times and I have started again to post.
But do not take me wrong I am just chatting and taking the chance to invite people to test the new app I did:
https://aegispad.com/
Have a nice day and it is a nice post! :D
You will be surprised to know that I keep track of 8336 active users since the time of inception of their account to present day :)
I do it for free! Yes, I am insane!
I can show you plots to establish that there is no statistically significant population of hive user with high KE ratio, and large HBD or liquid hive holding :)
The other comments are:
what if they exchanged hive for L2 tokens that is 'blog' related? My answer: they are shitcoins and net negative
what if they exchanged hive for Splinterlands assets? My answer: we have a whole tool to track just that
Also we have tools to track all major L2 tokens at hive which I call shitcoins.
So trust me, there is a lot of thought and work that went into designing a simple ratio.
@enraizar @palomap3 Es que el factor tiempo es importante, pero hay que saber analizarlo paralelamente al numero obtenido en la fracción comparativa. Todo tiene su truco.
Thank you very much @ninaeatshere for invoking me, I know you do it, as always, to help me understand more and more the Hive ecosystem. Also, the last time we met in person we already talked about the KE number, and we had different points of view.
Azircon's post, on the one hand, brings us closer together. I think the raw reading of the KE obviates important things from the accounts.
Anyway, my opinion is that the KE is not going to change the cures, some “worse” channels will continue to receive big rewards from the “whales” because of their position of power within Hive.
In my particular case, a small channel, the KE gives arguments not to support its content:
Although the very low number has a very simple explanation, I have been exchanging, at certain times, all my COS cryptos earned in another paltaform for HIve.
I have been mulling over the rewards issue for some time and I find it hard to talk about the KE when I don't even, after a year on Hive, understand the function of the rewards. Because if their purpose is to attract talent and quality creators to the platform, that goal is far from being fulfilled (at least that's how I see it).
Anyway, Nina, I thank you very much for mentioning me and giving me the opportunity to be here, reflecting on an ecosystem with tremendous potential and to which we both wish the best.
It is a privilege to have you so close.A big hug.
@topcomment
Es un número que no refleja todo lo que aporta cada usuario. Al menos para mí solo sirve de ayuda como pista para investigar algo más, un factor a tener en cuenta pero que no es decisivo. Gracias por la mención.
given that the default payout for author reward is 50% HBD why are neither HBD earned nor HBD staked included in the KE calculation?
That’s reward for the user to keep:)
yeah but what if...
!INDEED
Offf that's a lot of reading I continue reading the comments as well it's never ending 😂😂 I do understand why people like and dislike this KE reading thing. Whatever I wanna say it's already said on all the comments below. Anyway thanks for sharing my KE is 0.95 weeeeee
Jos la
good information, thanks