So, I was going through my portfolio again, to ensure everything is in order. Mind you the last time went through a rough HF20, back then I was still using bid bot to boost my post so I get to earn a little bit extra from every post I purchase post. And right before the HF20, there's a short burst of people buying in SBD, and the upvote pool suddenly shrunk because of dollar value against SBD increased by 20%. My original intended vote purchase of 30SBD become $24 worth of vote. Seriously suck if not being taken care properly.

# Where to count down?
![c5pkkttopx.png](https://img.esteem.ws/c5pkkttopx.png)
Here we go. You may proceed to https://www.coingecko.com/en/explain/steem_hf21 official website they have a countdown page for you to follow. @coingecko also did a simple write up of whats need to be done and understanding what a hard fork is.

# Free delegation
https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcKrEZF9BAHEYigB3BCjY9HTRFbhcMtZ129JvbXsfCC6S/Hardfork%20Party.jpg
If you do not know @coingecko is having a creative contest for HF21, please feel free to headover and read through. Who knows you may win a free delegation!

# Vote buyer beware
Since we're down to 9 days, you have 2 more days to decide how you're going to spend your hard earned SBD/Steem. Be extremely careful if you're going to spend your Steem/SBD to buy vote. I do not know if your vendor will increase their vote value towards the t-minus 7 days onwards. Reason being, after HF21, all posts payout will be 50% curation reward. Which makes, if you spend 10SBD to get a $13.50 upvote, at current version of hard fork you're supposed to get back a net value worth $10.125 after minus $3.375 curation reward. Post #HF21, your very same $13.50 upvote will be $6.75 because another $6.75 will be going back to the vote seller. So, do take very good cautious on this. If you're buying vote, make sure your vendor give you a sound and promising plan to counter act against this. I'm not saying they're wrong, because not many have been thinking of what is going to happen. Who knows if they have a rebate system for people who purchase votes pre-hf21 will entitle for a portion of overcharged curation reward?

# A gambling opportunity
![bqzsvfnzjt.png](https://img.esteem.ws/bqzsvfnzjt.png)
Head to your wallet, get in the market and place your limit orders for both your #steem and #sbd at ridiculous price that virtually not going to happen. It's not safe having open orders during hard fork, they may lose my lose end #steem or #sbd. Well, it's a risk I'm willing to take. If the witnesses can screw up my limit orders in the market, they can screw up my SP, and #steem can go screw itself. Who give a damn what happen after that? If it's going that bad, I believe my limit order is one of the least to worry about. What I'm worry will be #fomo. What if #hf21 makes #SBD plunge? Well, I have #steem, I'm going to buy some cheap #SBD whilst it's cheap. What if #hf21 drove #steem price up? Well, I have some #SBD, which I'm going to sell them for some #steem by setting my limit order there to trap the market. This is widely known by traders as Straddle Trading. For more detail insight reading, please refer [Investopedia](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/optioninvestor/08/straddle-strategy.asp)

# Summary
2 more days to go before going into final 7 days count down. Vote buyers beware of payout condition change. If you listen to me, once the count down timer shorter than 7 days, whatever post created then should be discounted by 1/2. Vote seller, beware of suddenly collect big amount of curation reward(like if you really should worry to collect lesser now). People who have absolutely nothing to do with their idle #steem and #sbd like myself, play around and do some limit orders. Too worry if they will go missing? Well, power it up! Don't bother to listen to me. I'm not giving you financial advise anyway. But if you're adventurous enough, plan your attack. I know I did.
![wu6kuttpp2.png](https://img.esteem.ws/wu6kuttpp2.png)