How to Power Down in 13 Installments.
My First Power Down - Mission Accomplished!
I've been on Steemit for about 9 months and have always been curious about the Power Down process. So much so that last week I decided to effect a Power Down just to gain the experience, and to see how it all works. If anyone thinks that their account holdings here on Steemit are very liqiuid, you'd better think again. Doing a Power Down to get your money is nothing like going to the ATM for some quick cash. Here is how the process went with me:
Begin Power Down
First thing was to begin the Power Down process. You do this by going into your Steemit account, then to your Wallet, then click on the arrow next to your "Steem Power" amount. You will see the option to "Power Down." When you select Power Down, the following box pops up:
Now you can enter in the amount (where you see the X's) of the Steem Power you want to Power Down. Once confirmed, your Power Down will commence. It will take 7 days until you see the incremental value (1/13th of your total Steem Power amount) appear in your STEEM total. Your SP will be decreased by that same amount. At this point, you can allow the Power Down to continue where you will keep receiving incremental installments of Steem every 7 days, or you can cancel the Power Down and it will end with just that one incremental transfer. All STEEM you have received from the Power Down process will continue to be added to your STEEM balance in your wallet until you end the Power Down and transfer your STEEM.
Exchange Transfer
Now comes the drudgery. Once you have your STEEM in your Steemit Wallet, you will need to transfer it to an Exchange. In my case, I transferred it to my account at Bittrex. To do this, you will need to obtain the STEEM wallet address from your exchange wallet to continue. On Bittrex, I just clicked on the deposit icon next to the STEEM in my wallet. In my case, I had no Steem in my Bittrex wallet initally so I had to buy some Steem using Bitcoin. Make sure you do not transfer your STEEM to any other wallet address other than a STEEM wallet address or it will be lost forever!
Now that I had a STEEM wallet balance, Bittrex generated a STEEM wallet address and I copied it to my clipboard.. Then I went back into my Steemit account > wallet > and clicked next to the STEEM amount and the following box appeared:
Here you will just click on "Transfer" and you will see this:
At this point you will fill in the "To @" with your exchange name (Bittrex). You will then fill in the amount of STEEM you want to transfer to your exchange STEEM wallet. In the "Memo" field is where you will paste the Steem wallet address that was provided to you by your exchange (remember the address you copied to your clipboard?). After double checking all your fields for accuracy, then you submit "Next" and you are done. You have just transferred all your Power Downed STEEM to your exchange wallet. That was the easy part!
The Extraction!
Now, depending on your exchange, it can get somewhat cumbersome. I can only speak for Bittrex at this time and this was the process I took:
First, I had to sell my STEEM for Bitcoin. So I sell the STEEM in exchange for Bitcoin, then transfer the Bitcoin to my Coinbase wallet where I can convert back to USD and then make a withdrawal to my bank account. The only other option Coinbase gives me is with Ethereum, in which case I would have sold the STEEM for Ethereum, then transferred to Coinbase.
All in all, you should not expect to get your funds any faster than this. It can take 7-10 days from start to finish, depending on your exchange and your method of extracting to your bank account or debit card.
I would love to hear about other Steemian's withdrawal methods, so if you would like to share your experience with everyone, write a post and leave the link in the comments below, that would be cool! It has been a learning process for me and I know there are thousands of Steemians just like me who wonder about the process and the ease of access to their money.
Now I just got to reverse that process and put it all back so I can Power Up again! 😎
Actually, the price of STEEM has dropped slightly (.20cents) since I converted it to USDT, so I might play the field here in the chance that the price slides a little lower, at which time I can buy even more STEEM back than I originally Powered Down.
Well, in less than 24 hours, the price of STEEM slipped to $3.58 on Bittrex and I bought it back. In summary, I powered down 74.50 STEEM and Powered back Up with 80.99 for a net gain of 6.49 Steem. Not bad for 30 minutes worth of effort.
What a funny coincidence!
With my first "cash out" I just used the SBDs we have just to see how it's going to work out converting them to USD to bank account.
Yeah, "liquid"? Not so liquid.
Yes, that is a coincidence. My test run proved just how illiquid cryptos really are. You must have patience when making these extractions. I had to convert Steem to BTC then to USDT just to hold in reserve (current value). Then when cashing out, I would need to convert back to BTC or another crypto that can be converted to dollars, then transfered to the bank. It's not like someone is going to walk up and hand you a check! Definitely a POW system... lol.
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