Want to know what it takes to be a serious stacker here on SN? You might not want to miss this one...
Stacker News Insights 👀
6 weeks ago I promised in the Stacker Saloon that I would review a big batch of SN post history to:
- draw some conclusions of trends to help understand better what makes a successful post.
- explore how the SN community is evolving.
- salute & celebrate what Stacker News has become.
- share insights for territory founders to improve engagement.
Today I am finally getting my finger out. This is the 1st of a 3 part series, to chunk-up some of the post data available on Stacker News in a responsible manner. The other two parts will drop later this week if there's enough interest from Stackers. Today we're going to focus on the overriding numbers in aggregate across dates, times & post types.
Above is a word-map from the post titles of >1k sat posts here on SN. In the coming days, we may also explore some territory data, to see which areas of the site are making a success of things. Finally in Part 3 we will credit those Stackers who are putting in the leg work, with the aim of helping others find who we should all 'subscribe to'. Encourage others to step-up their stacking game and post original content.
Notes
- Data is taken from stacker.news/top/posts/forever?by=sats
- Posts with over 1k sats total
(8,657 posts)are included. - This initial snapshot was taken at 22:45 EST on Monday 26th February.
- It only captures headline post data based upon homepage information visible to everyone - no SQL database access.
- Satsraisers have been removed from chart data for now, to prevent skewing the totals generated from posts.
- Want to be tagged in future editions/parts? Or do you have suggestions for new ~charts to follow-up with? Let's see suggestions in the comments below...
Related
Check-out some similar discussions & graphs from the @sn crew:
Satistics ⚡
By Month
In 2024, with not even 2 full months completed, there are already way more >1k sat posts on Stacker News (1,816) than the entire year of 2022 combined (1,009). 2024 has started off with a bang💥
Still, there are less >10k sat posts in 2024 (83) than 2023 (402), but every indication suggests that record could be broken this year. Let's hope this post can help get us there.
The average sats per post (3.8k) is impressively nearly-matching 2023 figures (4.0k), despite each satoshi being far more valuable today than last year.
Reminder: this is not the average for all of SN posts but just the average for posts above 1k sats total.The number of comments per post is intriguing also, since there isn't a huge difference between years. The curve seems to be flattening between months, with 2024 having an average of 16.1 comments per 1k sat post. On track to be between 2022 (17.2) & 2023 (16.6).
By Day of Week
The above graphs are suggesting we have ourselves some sticky users, with consistent sats every day of the week in 2024. Stacker News is definitely gamifying our stacking habits, damn you @k00b, @kr, @ek & team. 2023 shows an opportunity on Sundays for posting, with fewer high-value posts in number at that time. Saturdays and Mondays stackers are slacking.
It looks like posting on Wednesdays, Thursdays & Sundays is a great way to get an additional boost of sats when sharing engaging content on the site. For discussions & comments, Mondays and Fridays are the standout candidates.
By Time Of Day
It used to be the case that posting early morning for European hours would generate the most impact on the site. For 2023 & 2024, posting between 9am and noon Eastern Time is CLEARLY optimal, leading to 4,523 sats per post on average, vs 3,978 sats on average for other times overall. That's an extra 14% for posts with 1k or more sats. For posts with 10k or more sats, it seems that stackers have generated an extra 24.8% by simply posting between 9am and noon ET 😅.
The same is true for comments. 21.1 average comments when posting during 9am to noon ET, vs 16.5 comments on average any other time of day (27% up).
With Link or Not
70.2% of sats earned from posts (over 1k sats total) have come without sharing any link whatsoever. Just from pure chat & community alone. For 2024 that figure is 66.7%. Stacker News is becoming the source of bitcoiner content, not just a news aggregator no more.
Sharing a link results in less sats overall (3,365) when compared with no links (5,713). The gap has shrunk significantly since post descriptions became possible when posting SN links. Comments are drastically higher on posts with no links (22.1) vs those with (8.1). So again if you want more sats and engagement, take the time to write something original.
Popular Domains
Domain | >1k Posts | Avg Sats | Avg Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| --none-- | 5131 | 5,565 | 22.2 |
| twitter.com | 291 | 3,036 | 11.1 |
| github.com | 273 | 3,084 | 6.8 |
| youtube.com | 258 | 3,248 | 7.2 |
| substack.com | 109 | 2,533 | 7.9 |
| bitcoinmagazine.com | 105 | 3,318 | 6.7 |
| nobsbitcoin.com | 86 | 2,478 | 3.7 |
| bitcoinops.org | 68 | 2,328 | 0.7 |
| medium.com | 59 | 3,728 | 4.2 |
| lists.linuxfoundation.org | 56 | 3,561 | 5.4 |
| thebitcoinbugle.com | 47 | 2,143 | 7.6 |
| zerohedge.com | 36 | 2,339 | 7.5 |
| coindesk.com | 31 | 2,189 | 9.3 |
| cointelegraph.com | 22 | 2,242 | 7.8 |
| nitter.net | 18 | 3,040 | 10.1 |
| cnbc.com | 18 | 3,199 | 8.7 |
| primal.net | 17 | 9,347 | 16.1 |
| thrillerbitcoin.com | 17 | 2,486 | 9.5 |
| stephanlivera.com | 16 | 2,340 | 2.6 |
| forbes.com | 16 | 2,020 | 6.2 |
| mempool.space | 15 | 5,745 | 13.5 |
| blog.lopp.net | 15 | 2,962 | 7.0 |
| blog.mutinywallet.com | 13 | 7,560 | 14.4 |
Not much can be derived from the domains shared each month, but I'm still a fan of these sat-ghetti graphs myself. It should be noted similar domains have been merged (twitter.com with x.com) wherever possible. Primal had a recent flurry of sats thanks to @Darthcoin's Zeus anniversary post here on SN. Since Q2 2023, people have been surprisingly focused on mempool.space, be it sharing specific mining blocks, transaction fees or specific transactions like this one from @BlueSlime with increasing popularity.
Stacker Summary 😴
1. 2024 for Stacker News looks like being a record-breaking year to sat-earn.
2. Thursdays are now the best day (16% extra sats) for posting. Wednesdays or Sundays are the next best options.
3. Posting between 9am and noon (Eastern) may net you as much as 14-25% extra sats.
4. Posting between 9-12 EST will also see 27% more comments on posts.
5. Sharing something original WITHOUT a link may result in 69.7% more sats. 44% was the additional sats earned last year.
6. Detailed discussions are common with 2.7x more comments on posts without links. 2.8x more last year.
Preview of Territories - Part 2 🤠
Core Territories - ~bitcoin, ~nostr, ~meta, ~tech
Surprising to me, ~bitcoin (4.1k sats per post) is not much more popular than any of the other core territories for sats per post. ~tech is definitely trailing the Big 3 (in ~bitcoin, ~nostr, ~meta). On average making less than 3k sats per post vs 4k across the others, a 25% deficit.
We all likely knew this already but if you wish to stir a debate, the place to post it in is ~meta (with 25 comments per 1k post, vs 16 in ~bitcoin, 13 in ~tech and 10 in ~nostr. That's why I chose ~meta on this occasion over the increasingly popular ~charts.
More on that territory and others in the next edition...