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After seven days when a post or comment pays out, either half (50/50) or all (100% power up) is distributed as 'vests'. Our wallet display our 'vests' by it's equivalent STEEM value and calls it STEEM POWER. Vest is short for 'investment'. The more a Steemian is 'invested' in the blockchain with STEEM POWER (or 'vests'), the higher value your upvote is worth. You can power down your investment, but it's a slow process. The user looses upvote value as the STEEM POWER decreases.

The short answer is, the more 'vests' you have, the more influence you have on the STEEM blockchain to upvote or downvote (flag) comments and posts.

@ironshield

Thank you for the explanation in detail.

As for Steem Power... I do not see much merit in holding it..

As all power to trend posts is with vote buying bid bots.

And I can help my posts even get $.20 cents with my own upvote

If an investor wanted to trade their Bitcoin fortune for STEEM and convert it into STEEM POWER, he could delegate to a bid bot and receive a nice daily income of STEEM without ever posting or commenting even once!

Mostly, SP is influence. The power to upvote or downvote posts and comments that you believe positively or negatively effects the Blockchain. This can also affect the overall value of STEEM, which is in everyone's best interest.

In short: SP is the most unique way to HODL a coin I've seen. You can HODL a coin and have it actually do something for you!

@ironshield

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