So you're a minnow. A little iddy, bitty, tiny, super-small, infinitesimal, barely noticable, no one sees your posts, my-votes-ain't-even-worth-a-penny, fresh out the egg minnow. Or maybe it's worth a penny. Maybe your vote is worth three cents? Or maybe you're a borderline dolphin and it's worth around 40 cents? You may have heard that you can lease some STEEM POWER somewhere through the grapevine and just have to do it! Why? So you can gain better post rewards and give those people you follow more for their fabulous content. You need to buy some delegation.

Now, if you are not familiar with the term, let this serve as a simplified tutorial for you. Delegation is basically renting STEEM POWER (what gives your vote its value) for your account. My friend @michaeldavid first turned me on to this about 3 months ago and I find it very helpful. Especially for us little fish that haven't grown into 'dolphins' or 'whales' quite yet. Lucky for us, there are massive account holders that are 'kind' enough to let us rent some of their heaping stashes of STEEM POWER. Some are private, but there are two public major players I'm going to focus on here.

Good old @reggaemuffin has been doing quite well with this beast. He even picked up my witness vote recently because he supports the @originalworks bot. Love that little thing. But yes, buying delegation from them can be done fairly easily. There are two ways. You can go to Minnow Booster and click on lease from bot. Type in the amount of delegation you would like, or how much you want to spend and how long. Their delegations are parted out in weeks and @minnowbooster itself does not do the delegating. People actually go on there and buy your 'contract'. I've had delegations picked up by @eturnerx and a few others. You can also do it straight from your wallet if you keep the math in mind and in the memo field, put how long you want (in weeks) for a delegation. 1 week/75 SP (STEEM POWER) = 1 STEEM or for 4 weeks and over, you get 150 SP per STEEM (4 STEEM = 150 SP/4 weeks). Proof can be found by visiting @thealliance or @syndicates.

@minnowbooster also sells upvotes with their bot. It's something entirely different, but lately has left a bad taste on my selective tongue. Earlier today even, I was trying to buy a vote from them and 4 times it failed. Oh, by the way @yabapmatt, I saw your bid for witness on your Steem Bot Tracker site and wrote you in today. But back to @minnowbooster. I'm not sure what happened, if it was the whitelist thing they introduced or the new 'sell your SP' bit, but it is all jacked up now and I've just completely had it with that bot. I tried 4 different prices and none of them worked despite checking the site to see recent purchases so... y'all need to fix that som-n-a-beech.

This account has been here forever and should be respected. I also wrote this one in today for witness even though I've never used the Blocktrades website. That is until today, and omg was it ever easy. They have some major advantages over @minnowbooster too I'll get into in a minute. But, just to make sure you understand it well, as it is a new delegator, I will walk you through the process. First thing you need to do is click here and open another tab on Blocktrades.

These next few steps are very important. Each transaction is unique so you must first make sure the user/address you are sending it to is @BLOCKTRADES. Secondly (if using STEEM or SBD to pay), and most critical, is be sure to double check that you have put the proper MEMO in the MEMO field. Double check. Triple check if you have to. Just make sure it's @BLOCKTRADES and the MEMO field is filled out properly. It's basically the code that says how much you will be getting for what cryptocurrency at what price. I got some today and it is virtually instant.

For me, @blocktrades is the new champion! It knocked out @minnowbooster in three categories. Since @blocktrades is letting the STEEM POWER, it is as fast as you can say 'pickles and peanut butter' once you send the payment. I have waited almost 3 days on delegations from @minnowbooster before and even had a few requests returned because no one picked up the contract. I also love the fact that I can choose to pay for the delegation with a good couple handfuls of diverse cryptocurrencies. The ONLY thing you can buy delegation with from @minnowbooster is STEEM. Last and far from least, @blocktrades is actually CHEAPER than @minnowbooster! YES!

The choice really is yours. I bought delegation from both today just to see the difference. You have my comparisons, but do your own research and see what you come up with. I'm glad someone else stepped in the ring for delegating STEEM POWER. Anyone get the strange feeling that there will be more competition for delegation...