Hi Steemians,

You may be wondering why Blocktrades and Litecoin is needed to transfer Steem or SBD to cryptocurrency exchanges when Steem and SBD can be transferred directly to exchanges in seconds and without any cost. That is true.

But there are two important comsiderations to note.

• Steem and SBD are listed only on a few exchanges and among these, @bittrex (66 %) and @poloniex (33 % ) have the maximum volume.

• Many Bittrex users, including myself, have their accounts disabled and under long pending verification process. Poloniex is known for disabling Steem/SBD deposits and withdrawals.

Both these limitations mean that there are people, and in large numbers, who cannot transfer Steem or SBD directly to the exchanges.

That's where @blocktrades comes in handy. And since Steem or SBD are not available on may popular exchanges yet, Litecoin becomes an attractive option for transfer of value.

But you can argue that Blocktrades offers direct Steem to Bitcoin conversions as well. Why not get Bitcoin directly?

Why Not Bitcoin?

It is very honest and transparent of @blocktrades to mention on their exchange the following warning.

If you tranfer $100 worth of Steemit currency via blocktrades, you will get only $70 worth of Bitcoin. $30 will be deducted as network fee for miners and transaction fee etc.

That is why buying Bitcoin directly is not feasible, advisable or wise.

Scenarios Not Needing Transfer of Steem/SBD

There can be many scenarios in which a direct transfer of Steem or SBD to crypto exchanges is not needed or intended. A few of them are briefly explained below.

1. Withdrawal of Steemit Earnings

Some people may be living off their Steemit earnings. The benevolance of Steem economy makes sure that enough employment is provided to anyone who contributes to the platform.

My Steemit rewards are now exceeding my monthly salary by an ever growing margin. I may not be living off Steemit earnings but I am definitely attaining financial freedom and seeing my dreams come true soon.

It's the current value, excluding what I have transferred elsewhere using @blocktrades lately.

People may be regularly needing to withdraw money to run their homes, fund their education or fulfill their urgent needs. I know that because @steempkrex is my initiative to help Paksitanis withdraw money in a week we have seen more than 200,000/- Pkr withrawan through the exchange service. I will use it to donate payout of this post to the needy kid who sells tea at the age of twelve to support his broken family.

Shikika shared her Steemit success story when she was able to withdraw 24,232 Peso in Philippines using local coin exchange platform to celebrate Christmas with the family. Coinbase operates almost in all countries except some, including my own, so people use Blocktrades to send Bitcoin (they don't have to use Bitcoin only) to Coinexchange and sell them for fiat money.

2. Buying Good Cryptocurrency Coins

All the good coins may not be listed on Poloniex or Bittrex. And as discussed already, many people may not be able to use these two exchanges for Steem/SBD transfers. Alternative may be to use other good exchanges like Binance or Cryptopia to buy their favorite coins for profit. Since my Bittrex is disabled, I use Binance now.

Just yesterday, I shared how scared I was after my worst performance as a cryptocurrency trader in 2017. I could not think of investing again. But thanks to Steemit earnings and SBD and Steem price dynamics, I was able to ship some of it to Binance (using @blocktrades) to invest in coins I have great belief in.

A portfolio of $1200 built purely from Steemit earnings with an investment of almost $1000

I used @blocktrades but did not use Bitcoin due to high fees. Let me share the entire recent activity on Blocktrades. I first used Bitshares because I wanted to hold them or buy some Cardano after selling them. While I didn't calculate the exact comversion fees involved, it felt a little expensive. So, I have started using Litecoin as the default transfer of value option on Blocktrades.

You need to be logged in to save your transaction history. Sign up is not compulsory to use the service though.

Let me explain why Litecoin and Blocktrades is a super fast and economical combination. No matter you wish to sell Litecoin on Coinbase or any other exchange, or want to convert it to Bitcoin to hold or buy altcoins, it is the best option to transfer value from Steemit to the exchanges.

Why Litecoin?

Litecoin is an improvement on Bitcoin technology. It is a massive coin with a great future. It does everything Bitcoin can do but better. There are two main advantages Litecoin enjoys over Bitcoin.

• It has far less tranfer fees, making it extremely economical. I will show how it compared to the $30 fee of Bitcoin on Blocktrades.

• It is super fast and transaction are carried out and confirmed way faster than Bitcoin. I will show that as well.

Let's talk business.

Low Transaction Fees

I transferred 15.601 SBD to Blocktrades when SBD was $7.5 per coin. I got 0.5008 Litecoin for it when Litecoin was $230.14 as per Coin Market Cap.

• Total worth of SBD at the time was $117.

Add 5 hours to UTC to get our local times

• Total worth of Litecoin I got was $115.25 at that time.

• It means that it cost less than $2 to get Litecoin to my Binance wallet. Bitcoin would have cost $30, 15 times more in transaction fee.

You can cross check times on charts and time of the last transaction above.

Super Fast Transaction & Confirmation Times

Another great advantage over Bitcoin again. Bitcoin network is slow and expensive. Litecoin is fast and economical. I shared the blocktrades transactions already. But look at the times.

And now look at the time when the transactions were visit in my deposits on Binance.

Not as fast as Steem but definitely better than Bitcoin. Just a few minutes and I had my Litecoin.

I hope the point is clear now. I have kept a little more than one Litecoin for holding but bought a promising coin buy selling a quarter of my Litecoin for Bitcoin (with minimal fees) and then using BTC to buy the coin I needed.

Absoluet Steal:- If you want to convert your Steem/SBD to Bitcoin using Blocktrades to send on exchanges other than Bittrex or Poloniex, get Litecoin fast and cheaper and then sell Lietcoin for Bitcoin there in just seconds; saving mammoth of money and time.

Conclusion

Blocktrades is an amazing service to move around your Steemit earnings economically and faster. You can even use Blocktrades to convert your Litecoin and other coins to Steem as well. Due to this amazing service to the community, I have voted for @blocktrades as witness. You can vote too.

The purpose of this post is to save people's money and time by sharing the best possible method, or trick if you say so, to use Blocktrades and Litecoin. Please resteem to share with others.