How I turn my STEEM into spendable cash (USA)
**Disclaimer: You will need to upload a picture of your photo ID, list your address and phone number in order to get verified on these 3rd party accounts. This is necessary to turn your STEEM into cash.
For all those new users...
- @jerrytsuseer, @frolickinraptors, @rensoul7, etc...
1) DON'T DO IT
NOT until you have a decent stash, and I'll tell you why -
The more SP you have - the more you earn!! But don't just take my word for it...Check out this post for more info:
2) STEEMIT is meant to be a long-term investment
I realize a bunch of users have gone and left because they have realized STEEM is not so liquid. If you still haven't read the White Papers, then you might think you can just liquidate STEEM into cash. It is not so simple. These posts tell you how to convert STEEM into (EUR) or (USD):
- https://steemit.com/steem/@riensen/how-to-convert-steem-to-usd-eur
- https://steemit.com/steem/@alexc/now-you-ve-been-paid-in-steem-dollars-what-should-you-do
3) Okay, so you have enough STEEM to let some go now...
STEP 1: You must register for an account on an external, open market.
This is a necessary step in order to trade STEEM into BTC (which you will then trade into USD or EUR).
image from @riensen
List of exchanges (markets):
A) Bittrex
(My market of choice)
B) Blocktrades
Comes highly recommended by @thecryptofiend.
STEP 2: Sign up for a wallet.
Once you have registered an account on Bittrex, you will need to set up a wallet that will transfer your BTC into your Bank.
A) Coinbase
Once you have signed up for a Coinbase account, you will be able to transfer your newly traded BTC, into your BTC wallet.
From there you can turn your BTC into USD using Bitfinex...(which I haven't done).
(OR) (what I do)
You can register for a SHIFT card and link it to your Coinbase account.
STEP 3: Link you Shift Card to your Coinbase wallet
Shift Financial will allow you to use your (Shift) [debit card] to make transactions in the US and elsewhere. This means you will not have to transfer your BTC into USD or EUR. You will be able to spend the BTC in your wallet!!!
RECAP:
NOW that you are all signed up everywhere - - Follow along as I transfer my STEEM into my Bittrex and trade it on the open market for BTC (while it's lowish)!
1) Go to your Steemit Wallet
Look at that nice 228.486 STEEM, saved up over months Hope you have something like that to work with. STEEM has been hovering between $1.20 and $1.50, last couple months...
2) Login to your Bittrex account
(Make sure your Steemit wallet in open in another tab.)
You will be prompted to verify your IP address using email.
This is a welcome precaution in case someone tries to hack your account.
3) Once you are logged in, you will locate your STEEM wallet.
Click on "Wallets" and then search for "STEEM."
Click the + (plus sign) to add STEEM from Steemit. Doing so will generate a memo box.
This is what the memo looks like. From here you will copy and paste the longer "memo" into Steemit.
4) Hit Transfer (in your Steemit wallet)
Transfer your STEEM into your STEEM wallet on Bittrex. (I have definitely f*ed this up once). Go slow and take your time.
"bittrex" is the account you are transferring your STEEM into.
5) PASTE in the "memo"
This is how Bittrex will know where to take that STEEM and shove it (right into your STEEM wallet on the exchange).
Double check that the transaction went through smoothly (kiss your ass goodbye)
6) NOW you are ready to sell your STEEM for BTC!
After a few confirmations (check your email) your STEEM will appear in your Bittrex STEEM wallet. Usually this happens right away but give it some time before you freak out.
BAM! There it is!!!
7) Sell STEEM for BTC
Go to the open market and search STEEM. (BTC-STEEM)
You will be directed to the correct page for selling STEEM for BTC. In this example I sold for "last" price. Click "-Sell STEEM"
Confirm the shit outta that bitch and take screenshots....
See it break it up? It's all good - no worries....
8) Go watch
You can see Bittrex place your STEEM on reserve, until the transaction completes.
ONCE YOUR STEEM IS TURNED INTO BTC....
Holy shit! There it is!!
9) Now log into Coinbase
(Keep both exchanges open.)
Main page. From here click Accounts.
Click "Receive".
10) A wallet address will be generated...(COPY) that address
Now go back to your Bittrex account and click the (-) minus button. This will withdraw your BTC to your Coinbase wallet.
*Enter in the amount you wish to place in your wallet...and (this is the tricky part)...
11) (PASTE) in the Coinbase wallet address generated.
TA DA! Now your BTC is in your Coinbase wallet, which is linked to your Shift card and soon will be available to spend!!
NOTE: You must confirm the withdrawl by email - so go check!
Yes, confirm it (as long as you made the transaction and not someone else).
Whoop, whoop!!
12) Now, wait....
Often, exchanges will take a minute, or sometimes days, to confirm the transaction multiple times. This is for your safety. Please be patient. Soon, you will see the BTC pop up in Coinbase. When it does you are ready to spend.
Don't forget to *Link you Shift Card to your Coinbase account!!!!
Also it takes roughly 5-7 business days for your Shift card to arrive in the mail...not bad really!
CONGRATS on being a boss!!!!
Places I have used my Shift Card to make purchases:
- Fred Meyer.
This is the safest thing you can do at this point - request a money order from Freddie's and pay for it using your Shift debit card. This has proven to work on various occasions. - The local ATM machine. This is the second safest way to make cash out of the BTC in your Coinbase wallet.
- Safeway (you get the picture...)
- (not the gas station? or yes the gas station?) sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I don't recommend it. Just be careful.
- The bar....the restaurant (over and over again this has worked). Sometimes it doesn't though.
- It's always worth a try. Worst case scenario you tell the IRS about it when they come knocking (so far it's not illegal in the US).
Thanks for following along!
Hope this was easy enough to follow...
It is
complicated :(
I only messed it up a couple times. lol. just do smaller transactions until you get more comfortable with the process. 3 accounts: bittrex > coinbase > shift. just 3 jerry...
This is how I do it ... https://steemit.com/steemit/@offgridlife/how-to-sell-steem-or-sbd-for-bitcoin-or-litecoin-and-deposit-to-your-coinbase-wallet
Haha it really isn't, but like anything new at first it seems hopelessly so, I did this without guides and I still remember early this year when I accused @berniesanders of funding stuff through what I thought was his account @poloniex LMAO, yet a month or so ago I started powering down and got signed up with poloniex, and eventually got the shift card (came in the mail in about 1 week) and it was kinda effortless, now if I could just remember what my password was for bitshares so I can get to my 72 steem locked in there lol!
To me,
It just is
Daunting,
Thinking of
Opening three
MORE accounts
Each with its own
Set of Passwords and
Usernames, and filling out
Forms where my personal data
Will be stored (securely? I don't know).
URL locations for all that, and for
what?I don't expect to be making a pile of $
Here in Steemit (though one can be
Hopeful ♥) so I wouldn't be using
Any of those three accounts
Often, possibly not more
Than once a year, so
Is it Worth all the
Trouble and
especially
The Risk?
It's personal preference regarding the risks, and I will say this, I haven't been here 1 year, and I have been in WHALE-FLAG-WARS, not one, not two but closer to 5 or 6 times, autoflagged and such, I have hardly put down one decent post, maybe two, but have commented extensively on what I find interesting, important and whatever else catches my eye and have made a bit of steem on the Exchanges by buying low and selling high so that at the moment I probably made about 750 Steem, over 600 just from commenting on here. If you make 2-3 good posts you could earn that much, if you're not an insufferably disagreeable stickler for fact/truth like myself then you should expect to make much more than me, not only that I haven't disclosed SHIT about myself, don't have an Introduction Post even and will go toe to toe with anyone over matters of fact, and I still feel rewarded for doing essentially what I like. You will surprise yourself as well I'm sure, and if you don't plan on monetizing your steem now simply keep what I said in retrospective as we are a million different people from one day to the next ;)
I just checked and I had a little vote power, so I upvoted this comment.
I like to think ALL of my poems are good posts, some, according to the responses I get, may even be great poems, yet I still only make a few cents each.
There were a couple in the past weeks where I made $25, and $35 for those posts, I think someone was just being very generous.
I'm hanging around more for the ability to format my work in a
More 'eye pleasing ' way. Eventually, I would hope to be able
to publish, but in reality, I can't afford to pay a publisher, and
the self publishing I've looked into is just as complicated (if not
more so) that trying to navigate this quagmire.
I wear my heart and my life on my sleeve for everyone to see, in
Hopes that some of my experiences my help someone avoid
The stupidity I put myself through.
♥ Nice chatting with you @baah ♥
Have you tried the MSP (minnow support project)?
tnx a lot @robbyneggs your a saviour now I know how I will start to trade at bittrex using some steem.I been studying slowly about crypto and wanted to learn more.This post is one of a good idea to start and its easy to follow I will reccomend this to my friends also :)
wow I will definitely follow these tips thanks for the useful content
You're welcome!
Thanks for the info. I appreciate all the work you put into this community.
Your Post is underrated? Get an Upvote, Resteem and Follow!
Send a minimum of 0.5 SBD to @neowne, write URL of your post in the memo field.
This is a great tutorial!
I am nowhere near this point but I need this info on my page to find easily again. <3
Stash it for later! xo You never know!
;)
Exactly.
Great advice and I need this information for my future. Thank you!
Once I trade my Steem for Bitcoin (BTC) on Bittrex, I transfer it to a wallet on my home computer. The sooner I get the BTC in my own wallet on my own computer the better, as I don't think any BTC is safe until it is in your own wallet. As far as wallets go, I stick with Bitcoin Core, the tried and true daddy of them all.
https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/
Then once I have the bitcoin, I buy bullion. I did a post about buying bullion with bitcoin:
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@roomerkind/three-places-to-buy-precious-metals-with-bitcoin
I no longer am a fan of Veldt. I like Provident Metals now, wide selection and good price.
Once you have bullion you can cash it at any coin shop (this is preferable to those "We buy gold" places and pawn shops).
My method seems preferable if for no other reason than the more exchanges you go through, the more fees you are going to pay and the more likely there will be a problem along the way. I would think that Coinbase and Shift are not free. I trust Bittrex but Coinbase and Shift? If I can avoid those steps I am good with that.
You pay $10 (btc) for the card and the rest is very much free. Outside the poloinex withdraw fee there wasn't any fees in the transaction chain. Instead of trusting Provident Metals, you can trust someone else, and again you can keep your BTC in the wallet or use the coinbase wallet, or transfer back and forth as you see fit, works online and ATMS, so kinda beats gold/silver.
I would not trust ANY online wallet. They have a long history of disappearing. I would really advise people to have a wallet on their computer. If you don't want to download the entire blockchain there is the Electrum wallet. In particular Coinbase has a bad reputation. Do a search on them and you will see.
There is a fee off the top of every transfer from bittrex to coinbase. Might not be a fee for selling steem on bittrex, but there is for transferring off the exchange. The fee is small - large than any other bank, but still reasonable if I want my cryptocash. OX
Jerry - I would advice you use your time wisely. If you can make more $ elsewhere do it. XO
This is how I do it - I go to my Steemit Wallet - I go to STEEM or Steem Dollars and click "Sell" ... a Blocktrades window opens. I say sell SBD to Bitcoin and enter my Coinable wallet #. Then I go back to Steemit and transfer the STEEM to "Blocktrades" using the Memo they gave me and voila the money is transferred to my Coinable wallet - takes me about 5 seconds. https://steemit.com/steemit/@offgridlife/how-to-sell-steem-or-sbd-for-bitcoin-or-litecoin-and-deposit-to-your-coinbase-wallet
Superior! :-) Thanks for adding this bit in @offgridlife - very helpful :-)
I am glad that you add two cautionary notes before you explain the process. As you correctly point out, Steemit is a long term investment. But at times due to various circumstances we need to power down and cash out. I mentioned you in my post. [Newbie Nuggets: Using Spectacles To Enhance Engagement With My Followers] (https://steemit.com/steemit/@positivesteem/newbie-nugget-using-spectacles-to-enhance-engagement-with-my-followers)
Nice! I'll check it out! Thanks for mentioning me PS. :-)
Thanks for this @robyneggs I had been wondering about the process. You made if very clear. I appreciate the time you put into this post.