I will admit I was a real skeptic. I mean I have blogging on here now for a couple months and had made a little money, but was it real? When it said I was worth $300 was I really, or was it just a pipe dream? The only way to find out was to sell some Steem Dollars and see if I could translate them into actual Dollars that I could spend. Lo and behold I did and could. Here is what I did.
Due Diligence
The first thing I had to do to start this process was research. I cannot say it enough, research, research, research. Do not take this post as anything more than general advice, please. I am no expert by a long shot, I just am willing to take chances and learn. So I took a chance and sold some Steem Dollars, why not? I had made them out of thin air so if that is what they ended up being I didn't lose anything but time, but if they ended up being worth real world money, I gained a whole lot and the encouragement to make more.
My First Step
I had to set up an account where I could trade my Steem Dollars for something I could sell for cash. I do not know if you can sell Steem Dollars directly for cash or not, maybe you can, but I read that the best way to do it was to trade for Bitcoin, so that is what I did.
I set up an account at Bittrex where I would trade my Steem Dollars for Bitcoin. I then had to transfer them to the Bittrex account. I went to me wallet and clicked the down arrow next to my Steem Dollar balance and on the drop down menu clicked "Transfer." This opened up a window where I needed to put in where I was sending the Steem Dollars (The "To" window) In order to get that address I went to Bittrex and clicked on "Wallet" (Of course this was after I had set up the Bittrex account, which was a very simple Email verification process)
In the "Wallet" menu there is a "Account Balances" bar and on the right there is "Search" bar. In that search bar I typed SBD to only display Steem Balances. Now I only have Steem showing and will be able to do the next step easier. I go to the line listing for Steem balance and see a "+" and "-" sign. I clicked the "+" and got a dialog box that has a memo and the account name "bittrex." I copied that memo to place in the window in my Steemit wallet for where to send. There is an account box, where I put "bittrex" (Without the quotes of course) and where the "Memo" box is I copied the memo from Bittrex. I put in the amount I wanted to transfer (A little over $300 Steem Dollars) and I hit "Submit" I had to enter my name and password and it was done.
In a few minutes the balance transferred to Bittrex.
Step one down.
Trade for Bitcoin
Next I clicked on the blue SBD in the account bar under "Symbol," and this took me to the Steem market. I scrolled down and on the right hand side I saw a "Sell Steemdollars" dialog box. I filled this box out and where it says "Price" I clicked to get a drop down box. In that box I clicked "Bid" to sell quickly at the highest market rate. I clicked the "Max" button to sell all the Steem Dollars I had on Bittrex at the same time, then I clicked "Sell SteemDollars" to finalize the order.
Step two down.
The tricky part...Kind of anyway
Now you have to find a reliable way to sell the Bitcoin in your Bittrex account. Again you need to do your research and find the best way that will fit you. I chose to use LocalBitcoin as my trading platform as it was said to be reliable during my research. I also liked the fact that you could read feedback from the person you were doing the sale with and choose how you wanted to get paid. This site also puts the Bitcoin in an escrow account until you release it after receiving payment which is another layer of security to me.
So I created a LocalBitcoin account, again a pretty simple Email verification.
I then had to send the Bitcoin to LocalBitcoin to be able to sell it for regular U.S. Dollars. I went to the button that said "recieve Bitcoin" and clicked it. This gives you a Bitcoin address to receive the Bitcoin to. I copied this address to paste in Bittrex. I then went to Bittrex and clicked on "Wallet" again where I clicked on the "-" sign this time. This brought up a window where I had to paste the address in the account box. I clicked on the "Up" arrow until I had the amount I wanted to transfer, then I clicked "Withdraw." to finalize the transaction.
This step takes some patience because the BlockChain has to do its work and verify the transfer. I went to Tradeblock.com and put in the address I was sending to to watch how long it was going to take to transfer. This gives you real time BlockChain verification information. When the trade was confirmed it was in my LocalBitcoin account.
Now comes the fun part
The next tricky part...Finding the right buyer
Again this is where you have to do some reading and look at the FAQs. I did and I saw that one way that was considered safe was to have direct transfer to a bank account. I chose this method because I was really not trying to have someone send a deposit and then cancel it after I released my Bitcoin to them. Nope.
So I went into my LocalBitcoin account and clicked on the "Quick Sell" button on the right side. Where it said "All online offers" I clicked the down arrow and clicked on the "Cash Deposit" option, this means the seller is going to go to an ATM and deposit cash in an ATM with your account number. I filled out how much I wanted to sell and clicked search. This brought up a list of people willing t pay the way I specified. The list tells you what bank the buyer is willing or able to do business with.
I picked one that had my bank (PNC) and clicked on "Sell" next to his name. This opened up a window that says the price they are willing to buy at and how much you want to sell to him, I filled out how much I wanted to sell and it automatically said how much I would get from the buyer. There is a dialog box that has a place to message the buyer. There is also a box with instructions from the buyer, what he needs from you in regard to information, Etc. I filled that out and sent the trade request.
It wasn't long before the buyer messaged me and told me he was going to mark the trade as "Paid" and he would make the deposit in the morning. I then asked him if that was when I was supposed to release the Bitcoin, and he said yes. Thankfully he was honest because I didn't know and he could have gotten me right there, but he did not. He marked it paid and I waited.
The next day around noon I received notice from my bank saying the money was there. I released the Bitcoin and that was that.
I had $290 in my bank account after starting with $300 in Steem Dollars. I still have some little amount in my LocalBitcoon account, and I am not really sure what the fees were for all this, but like I said this money was all from nowhere to me. I like to write and was doing it for free on Facebook, now I was officially getting paid for it! Awesome!
What should I do with the money?
I would like to say I did some noble thing with the extra money I now had, but I did not. I was a homeless Heroin addict 21 months ago ad I wanted some shoes. i have not ever really had really nice shoes and I always wanted some Jordan's. I have had one pair and my life.
Now I had 2!
I am sure there are better and more informed ways to do this. I do not know, I am new to this. My whole point here was to see if Steem Dollars could really be turned into something that I could actully buy something with. Needless to say, I will be posting on Steemit at least once a day!
As Always
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