Steem dollars are trading at a premium at the moment (1.37 USD), which I believe is because there aren’t any other reliable stable currencies out there.
Traders need to hedge their winnings or mitigate their losses against a stable currency. This was mainly done through Tether USD (USDT), a stable and centralized crypto-currency that guaranteed a $1 dollar peg…. until it didn’t! due to bank problems USDT holders can´t withdraw their funds to bank accounts, which caused the price to fall to 0.91 cents and has slowly recovered to 0.95 cents, but still not quite 1 dollar.
Another common option is BitUSD, a btishares token that works very similar to Steem Dollars, the problem is that BitUSD was removed from Poloniex a while back and it is only being traded at OpenLedger, so its unavailable for most traders.
Nubits used to be another option, until this happened…
In the future and as the Steemit community grows, we will need a mobile app to send and receive steem dollars and a FIAT bridge, which is a platform for users to convert steem dollars to local currencies and vice-versa. These two things are needed to allow local shops and businesses to accept Steem Dollars in an easy and convenient way.
But for now, we can all enjoy a nice premium on our Steem Dollars!