I recently noticed a fellow steemian using the SBD "convert to steem" feature. While this may be fine (and possibly even advantageous) to do when SBD is trading at a discount, you're literally throwing away money if you do it while SBD's trading at a premium, as it is currently.
Based on the conversion rates he was receiving for SBD he already owned, he was paying almost 29 cents worth of SBD per STEEM, whereas he could have purchased that same STEEM using the internal STEEMIT market at https://steemit.com/market for 21 cents SBD per STEEM. That would imply he was overpaying for his extra STEEM by nearly 40%!
And if you consider he could have attempted to BID for a better price on the market as well, versus outright taking the offer, the savings would be even higher. Furthermore, if he were to continue using the conversion feature since yesterday's continued STEEM run-up from around 21 cents, he'd likely be overpaying by around 50% (since SBD has also become more valuable versus actual US $dollars)! You can calculate this yourself by converting Poloniex's SBD/BTC price back to dollars ( 0.00096949 x 1575 = $1.53 ).
While I'm by no means suggesting anyone to buy into more STEEM at these elevated prices just after such a quick run-up, some people seem to use the feature to convert their extra SBD to STEEM without realizing how much of their hard-earned crypto cash they're just tossing away. And nonetheless, it's important for all steemians to understand this regardless of the current STEEM and SBD price.
Once you've converted your extra SBD to STEEM, you can also easily power it up (if you choose to do so) by going to your Wallet, clicking the little down arrow next to your STEEM balance, and clicking Power Up. Then, just complete the form and you're good to go!