Day 41: Delegating for Tribe tokens VS Hive
So many places to delegate
Image created by Dall-e. Not sure everything in the image is completely accurate but I still thought it looked cool
Yesterday I wrote a piece talking about 10 different curation accounts that I delegate to ranking the payouts of each. @dlmmqb mentioned that I goofed on the @hivepakistan curation account. To make it right I'll make an updated list and add them in there...at the bottom of this post...because those guys are doing a great job and deserve better than being put on the wrong list.
Making sure this isn't a rehash of yesterday's account though I wanted to talk about delegating to three different accounts that do NOT pay out in HIVE. If you are to delegate to @leo.voter, @indiaunited, @pakx or even our own @hiveabbyftp you don't get paid out in HIVE.
You delegate in HIVE and get paid in a Hive-Engine / Tribe token.
What are tribe tokens?
Without getting too technical (because I do not claim to have deep knowledge on the blockchain) but...
- Hive blockchain has two native coins: HIVE and HBD they are very useful, but they are locked onto the HIVE blockchain.
- Hive-Engine is a layer that sits on top of the Hive blockchain. If you want to move cryptocurrency onto or off of Hive you will need to use the Hive-engine typically in the form of a wrapped asset such as swap.ltc, swap.btc, swap.doge etc.
- Hive-Engine allows anyone with BEE tokens to make their very own cryptocurrency. I call them hive-engine tokens or lvl 2 tokens although I have heard them called Tribe tokens.
- Why tribe tokens? Because different communities (tribes) on Hive often have their own currency. Actifit has AFIT, Splinterlands has DEC/SPS, Great Little Dragons has GLD and so on.
Now some tribe tokens are pure junk. Others are arguably more valuable than the HIVE tokens themselves. Figuring out which ones are good and which aren't can be a full time job and I won't claim to know even a small portion of the tokens.
But I do know a few :)
- I am very bullish on HELIOS
- I think the BBH token can be useful depending on usage
- I'm in charge of the GLD token so I know exactly how it works
- I know the man in charge of the PAKX token know he works tirelessly for it
Buying and selling tokens
If you haven't found the hive-engine yet it is really a place every Hive user should figure out. It is how you buy and sell tokens from various different projects on Hive. Yes, there is Tribaldex but its a layer that sits on top of Hive-Engine if I understand the architecture properly so I suppose finding it would work also.
HELIOS
If you look at the HELIOS token you will notice that the buy and sell orders are very close. Then look again. The sell order is 13 HIVE ($0.78) and buy order is 21.5 HIVE ($1.29). Many of these tokens have very thin order books and any real buy and sell activity can change their value considerably.
PAKX
If you look at PAKX you will notice a huge difference between the buy and sell price. 2.09 vs 3.43 Hive. A spread of over 1.3 Hive or 65% of the buy value. Plus the buy and sell walls are thin.
That isn't necessarily a bad thing as PAKX tokens are designed to be bought and held but it does mean that if you have a lot if can take a long time to liquidate.
And the GLD token?
There are no sell orders. There is a bot which makes sure people who have the token could sell on hive-engine but there are things called liquidity pools which tend to make sure that there is better liquidity and better spreads than the hive-engine can provide.
Liquidity pools
Very briefly
Tribaldex offers a service where a smart contract / bot can hold two different tokens. It makes sure there is always a buyer and seller between the currency pair. For the GLD token that means that a person can always buy or sell the GLD token against either HIVE or LTC.
Unfortunately it is expensive to setup a pool (1000 BEE tokens) so many communities do not set them up. I totally understand why! Every token spent on a liquidity pool and every token spent on the buy wall of the hive-engine is money that can't be earning money rewarding the community.
It is a tough balancing act. If people can't sell their tokens they can be seen as worthless. However, if the community offers too much liquidity then they can't generate any income.
PAKX or HELIOS? ... no liquidity pools (for better or worse)
What I really wanted to get to!
The Great Little Dragon community delegates to three different curators that offer tribe tokens. @indiaunited, @pakx, and @leo-voter ... or perhaps four if you include @hiveabbyftp (Great Little Dragons). I have made a weekly habit of talking about the GLD community distributions but lets say the value is 8% currently but may chance in the future. I'll keep it off the list for now.
The ones I'll list?
PAKX
Bottom Line 6.55% return
Or looked at another way 10.86% return
Why two different numbers? How can it be different returns?
Well, look at the buy and sell side of the price. At the BUY price it is 6.55% at the SELL price it is 10.86. Pick the one that makes you happier. If delegate and HOLD pick the sell side. If you delegate and SELL then choose the buy side.
Still 6.55% on the low side isn't a bad return at all.
Indiaunited
At 6.03% its not a bad deal either.
Leo Voter
This one surprised me. It has traditionally been one of my go to delegation places because of a high return. However LEO has taken a bit of a hit recently on price so maybe that is why the return is so low. Or perhaps my math is wrong but...
Only 3.61%. Ouch.
Additional Tribe Token Benefits
Now I just looked at tribe tokens issued for the delegation but tribe tokens can have additional properties as well and I rarely look too hard into that.
I can tell with certainty that those people who hold PAKX tokens will eventually earn HIVE distributions weekly. I've heard rumor that those with a lot of tokens can call the PAKX curator but I'd need to ask @dlmmqb about that as he knows the token far better than I do.
I mention these side benefits because they really can add extra value to a token above just its buy and sell value. I'm quite sure the LEO token as extra value as well, but I've never quite figured it out as its a complicated place to be.
and in case you are curious :)
the PAKX tokens I've received from the delegation have grown to the point where I'm getting a HIVE distribution of 0.192 HIVE so far. Ignore the 0.24% return as that is assuming all I got was the HIVE. The PAKX tokens are where the value is above. This is just a really cool side perk!
Adding in the regular HIVE delegations
As promised here are the regular delegation rewards
These ones all paid out in HIVE tokens
I know @tergan pasted almost an identical list yesterday but @hivepakistan got missed so here is a reprinted list to check out if you are curious.
Thanks for dropping by!
Hope you found it informative