I really think SALT is a great investment to make. If you will be needing cash normally you would liquidate your cryptocurrency investments but here comes SALT. Whenever you need cash you can then get a loan based on your portfolio as collateral to the loan. That really is awesome get cash when you need it without losing your cryptocurrency portfolio. I will be looking to acquire some.
Unless you are a holder of BitShares. Then you can use your BTS as collateral to borrow bitUSD which can be converted to cash with relative ease. As long as you maintain a sufficient collateral ratio to avoid being margin called or force settled, you never actually let go of your BTS in the process (you even retain their voting rights), as they stay locked in a smart contract on the blockchain (no counterparty risk) until you close the debt position.
Did not know Bitshares can do that, never been able to study how bitshares work but I will be definitely looking at it. Thanks for sharing :)