Woot steem keeps going up in value! :) Also.. Some more questions about withdrawing a small amount of steem out and some more general thoughts on cryptocurrency.

SBD at $9.15! Darn..
That's as high as I've seen it before though I see from reading older posts it's been up to at least $12 before.

And steem is at.. $2.06

Cool to see!
Wish I could figure out how to cash out a small amount, lol.
Though.. After trying for a couple days, I'm too busy and have to get back to other things for a while.

I tried coinbase and wasn't able to get my Drivers license verified so I googled it and found a LOT of other people have similar issues.
Here's a quote from one person which kind of turned me off a bit when I thought about it.. However true.. It does seem like their tech support sucks and I'm not sure I could even get a response from them if I did try to contact them..

"Coinbase is fraudulently withholding access to valid accounts and NEVER accepts photo ID with their automation. They don't allow you to just email photo ID to support. They don't let you use a video chat. They don't allow you to escalate to decision maker, or mail a photocopy of DL. They don't accept notarized proof of identity. They don't even allow you to visit their offices to show identity. In many cases, they don't have record of your ID so they can't compare anything. Their fake AI should be able to read name and driver's license numbers as long as the images are in focus. They don't and asking that there be no glare, all corners shown, etc. is bull***t. It doesn't work because they don't want it to work and eventually they will probably close accounts and steal your money."

So then I tried BitPay.. And I see they have a nifty card that might work.
I proceeded to get a wallet with them and made an account on blocktrades and then sort of ran out of time..
I wanted to ask anyone who might have some knowledge about this stuff, what the proper order to go in is?
I found a tutorial so I don't desperately need your help, though it would help to hear it from multiple sources and a lil more clear than the article I found.

Cause I'm still a lil unsure of the order I go in.. Do I power down into blocktrades? And from blocktrades send it to the BitPay wallet?
And then when I get it in the BitPay wallet I have to pay for the BitPay card with bitcoin, so can I do that from the BitPay wallet or do I have to do it from blocktrades? Lol...
This stuff is a bit confusing and it hasn't been easy, it's taken a lot of research over two days and I'm still not quite there.

If I can't manage to get it done soon, I don't mind waiting.. I'm just glad I dived in and finally started learning how.
Cause.. I think some of these issues will be ironed out in time that I'm dealing with.. Like being unable to verify my identification with coinbase..
That's probably just a temporary bug and glitch, but.. Either way.. I think things are moving in the direction of making this all easier..
So I'm not too worried about it.. If I can't pull some money out now to get the item I wanted to get.. I'll just wait until it's easier and do it in the future and the item I want will probably be cheaper by that time.

Though.. One thing I am sort of concerned about is.. More government regulation, which I totally think is the direction we're going in soon.
Which is also one reason I'm much more open to the conspiracy theories out there, cause.. This is sort of like a pandora's box that has been opened..
I don't see it going away cause too many people love it too much, and the government is going to watch to control it as much as they can..
I don't have a lot of faith in the peoples ability to resist massive government regulation.. Thus.. I do think the conspiracy theorists were sort of right in the long run.. This is moving us toward a sort of cashless society that is controlled by the government similar to the way our paper fiat currency is now.

Some people claim the government can't control it.. I would genuinely like to hear more of the reasoning behind that.
Also I would like to make the distinction that a pysical source of money like paper will likely always exist side by side digital for those who want the qualities that offers.
Yet I do think in the not too distant future it will get harder and harder to pay with physical cash and easier and easier to pay with digital money.

This is actually kind of perfect and brilliant and ingenious if you consider it in terms of the people in power..
They were already printing money up based on computer numbers out of thin air.. Now they can regulate and control money on a level never possible before.
As one person I saw said.. There's no need for "Physical banks" anymore.. Physical banks will likely become a thing of the past in the not too distant future and almost everyone will being doing their banking on their phones and computers...
Really interesting to think about.. And.. I have to say after thinking about it.. It makes more sense to me scientifically to move in this direction.

Minus the corrupt government part.. The idea of people creating their own money is amazing and key and why so many people rightly and justly advocate this technology..
Let's try to not lose that and hope some other alt coins can thrive and we won't have one super mega monopoly coin like bitcoin.
But.. I guess time will tell what happens, if the people can truly separate themselves from government money, or if the government is going to win like it almost always does and heavily regulate crypto currencies to the point they are basically just a new digital option to the same corrupt blood stained centrally controlled currency.