A horrible failure, and a lesson learned - Edited

Edit - The option to 'convert to steem' has been removed now, probably thanks to quite a few people noticing the issue at around the same time and conversing about it. Feel free to still read about my experience, but the lesson may no longer be one anyone else needs to learn.

Original Post
They say that life is a learning experience, and in the few months that I've been here none of those lessons have been as expensive as the most recent one. This post was prompted by the warning that @minnowsupport posted. If I've made any errors in my workings, let me know and I'll edit with credit.

The Background and leadup

For the majority of the time I've been on steem (since July 1), Steem and SBD have been around the same price. As a result of this I never really noticed an issue with using the convert to steem option in the wallet section.

^{The options available to you when you click the little arrow next to a value on your wallet page}

So I'd been happily converting 25 or 50 SBD occasionally and getting generally what I was expecting based on my knowledge of the current prices of both currencies, and sometimes it felt like I did a bit better than expected.

My Error

Because of this, and my lack of understanding of how the 'Convert to Steem' option actually worked, When SBD started to go up, I put in a convert on 100 SBD thinking it would return me around 200 Steem. Well, when it came through after 3 days and SBD was now over $7, and I only got 72.411 Steem, you could say I was a little pissed off at being ripped off. I wouldn't have been happy at that conversion even before the SBD price increases, but during them? I went and talked with a couple of people and found out my error, not entirely in understanding how the 'Convert to Steem' option works, but that I should have just been using the 'Market' option anyway.

Why use the Market option?

Well, the first reason to use it is the speed. Using 'Convert to Steem' takes 3 days, which is horribly slow, and should help keep everyone away from using it once they know there is a quicker and easier way.

The second reason is you can get a much better conversion rate on the market, especially when SBD is above Steem and above $1. This is because it's basically just a market where people are trading 2 commodities - Steem and SBD.

^{I'll do my best at explaining this, but for people that use markets I'm sure it all makes sense already}

Explaining the Market Page

The top row, above the graph gives a summary.

• Last Price - The last trade completed was at this price, in SBD. So in our image that was (SBD)$0.147715 for each Steem.
• 24h Volume - The total value in SBD traded in the last 24 hours
• Bid/Ask - The Highest Bid and Lowest Ask values. I think Bids are offers to Buy Steem, and Asks are Selling Steem.
• Spread - The percentage difference between the Bid and Ask values

We then have the graph, which to the best of my understanding is a graphical representation of all the bids and asks that are currently on the table. When the line is higher up the graph, there is more supply at that price. The values below the graph represent the price in SBD$ for 1 Steem

Directly below the graph is the area where you can enter your offers to Buy or Sell Steem (Place a Bid or Ask), including a line showing the the current high/low again, and your available supply of either SBD (Buy) or Steem (Sell).

Below that section is some columns of current offers on the table, as well as a column of trades that have happened recently. Underneath that is a section titled 'Open Orders' which lists any offers you have placed, and an option to cancel the offer.

Placing an offer

In the section where you can place a bid there are 6 text boxes, separated into 2 columns that are clearly labelled 'Buy Steem' and 'Sell Steem'. I'll only do an example for buying steem, as I've never sold steem this way, but it works pretty much in the same manner, just reversing directions and flipping the currencies being referred to.

^{A default price is already entered, which corresponds with the current Ask/Bid prices when you loaded the page}

Buy Steem

First thing I do is enter how much SBD I'm wanting to sell, which will automatically populate the Steem cell with how much I'd get at the automatic price.

I then look at the graph and see what it's been doing while I've been on the page, and adjust the price to somewhere towards the big step up in supply, but not up it. The further towards the left of the graph your value is, the longer it will take for your offer to be filled, as it would need someone willing to sell at that price. The further right on the graph the price is, the quicker it fills. This is all based on the current graph, where the majority of the supply is on the left drawing the price down.

After I'm happy with a price point for my transaction, I correct the value in the SBD box to reflect how much I want to use to buy Steem, which updates the Steem box again.

Finally I click the 'Buy Steem' button below them and respond to the dialog boxes that pop up to authorise the offer.

Depending on the price you picked, the sale could have completed almost instantaneously, or may take quite a while, but if you're close enough to the current price point and inside the supply mountain cliff, it should only be a matter of minutes before it's completed.

Final lesson

So, in the end this lesson cost me around 200 Steem, though could have been even more depending on when I decided to use the market instead of convert options. Hopefully you can all learn from my mistake and not waste your SBD as foolishly as I did. If nothing else, don't waste 3 days waiting for the 'Convert to Steem' option, and just go and instantly trade SBD/Steem on the Market at a much more current rate.