In order to fully explain what a resource credit (what we used to call voting power) is on a blockchain, I need to make one thing clear:
Every action on the blockchain has a cost; if you post, vote, comment, share, or just transact any transaction on the blockchain, there is a subsequent cost for that transaction ON the chain.
That holds true for ANY blockchain, even the least cost platforms (like polygon), there will still always be a cost because you have to either mine the block or work on that block or use that block on the blockchain - and that requires work, and you have to pay for that work.
The Past
In the past, SoMee operated a forked version of the Steem blockchain internally - that means we had the GFUEL/GBUCKS/SOMEE POINTS always on the internal blockchain - we held the keys for that on your behalf, so that we can transfer and transact with them for you without any interaction from your side.
But, that's not very fair to you - so we had to find a way to decentralize that process.
We also had to find a way to decentralize the entire concept of social media, and the only way to really do that was to adopt the sidechain principle. Where each post can be monetized on a blockchain that is controlled by essentially no one.
That's where HIVE comes in.
The Future
With HIVE, there are literally thousands of RPC nodes out there, some public, some private, some internal, some not - most of these nodes are used to EXTEND the HIVE network to provide more access if something goes down. The great thing about SOMEE using HIVE as the first sidechain is that if SOMEE ever goes down.........you still have your posts on the blockchain and can still continue to post onto your SOMEE content whenever you wish and continue to earn. That's the great thing about using HIVE as the first sidechain.
The Cost
But, as stated before, there is a cost for all actions on the blockchain, and on HIVE, that cost is outlined in the concept called 'Resource Credits'. This is no different than when SoMee was doing their own chain, except we called it voting power. Each action would reduce your voting power, and have a cost and once you hit your limit for that day, your voting power was depleted. You then had to wait for your voting power to regenerate back to 100% before you could do things that gave you monetary gain.
That is exactly how resource credits work.
The Resource
You can view your current HIVE account breakdown by visiting HiveBlocks website (https://hiveblocks.com/@YOURHIVENAME) for example. Mine, for example for testing purposes is: https://hiveblocks.com/@zackrspv2
On this screen you see many things:
The first thing you see is your overall voting weight and resource credits, as well as your reputation and account age.
You can see that, for me, I have about 18.28% resource credits available for use. This % is based on the maximum amount of resource credits that I can have on my account based on how much hive power and reputation have on the HIVe network. The more HP I have (hive power) and the more reputation I Have, the more the blockchain gives me to use for Resource credits.
Reputation
Reputation also plays a huge role in resource credit generation and usage on the network. The lower reputation you have, the less RC you will have compared to other accounts on the network - because HIVE wants to award people who post onto the blockchain with not posting spammy or abusive comments, threads, and information. So the more quality your posts, the better reputation you have.
Your reputation will increase for every upvote you receive, and your reputation will decrease for every report and or downvote you receive. BUT YOUR REPUTATION WILL NOT decrease if the # of upvotes on your post is greater than the number of downvotes, and even if the downvotes are MORE, if the total value of the downvotes is LESS than the total value of the upvotes on your post, it won't affect your reputation that much.
Below this, you'll see the breakdown of Resource Credits, and what you currently have on your HIVE account.
Max_Mana: That is the maximum amount of mana you are allowed to have on the blockchain (think of this as the maximum voting power you are allowed to have). This is based on your reputation, account age, and activity on the chain. The older your account, the more reputable, and the more Powered Up hive you have, the higher this value goes.
Current_Mana: This is the amount of mana (voting power) that you have on your account to work with. As you do things on the blockchain, this value decreases.
Current_PCT: This is the current percentage of your Current_Mana vs your Max_Mana, it's a way to measure how close you are to using all of your voting power (or mana) on the network
Estimate:
The system will also tell you how much your current_mana can work on the blockchain. In this case, with 1,020,423,613 current mana, I can do:
- 0 comments (this means posts, comments, or replies on the network)
- 7 votes
- 3 transfers
So, obviously not much, because I don't have altogether that much HIVE power on the network. So my resource credits are fairly low.
In order to obtain MORE resource credits, I either need to POWER UP some HIVE, which will increase my MAX mana and current mana, or i need to wait. If you have 0% left of resource credits and don't power up, it takes about 5 days to regenerate to 100% again (this is the same with SoMee and voting power on our own blockchain).
After Recharge
This estimate shows what you will be able to do if you don't power up any HIVE to obtain more Resource Credits, and your resource credits come back to 100%. After a full recharge, that's the # of actions you'll be able to do. Obviously, if you power up more HIVE you can do more things on the blockchain. And, also, if you reduce your voting weight, you can vote more often on the network.
On this screen, you will also see the ACTIVITIES for your account (either by you or as referenced by others) on the HIVE blockchain. These are everything from voting, to posting, commenting, reporting. Basically, any transaction you have done will be visible here, and the associated cost and value of that action will also be displayed.
