A Personal, Private Exchange of Steem for Fiat - Initial SUCCESS Report!
“The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.”
– Lord Acton –
Proof of Concept - Mission Accomplished!
Today I exchanged a little Steem for a little fiat... It went well!
Who Needs Banks?
Image courtesy of Jimi Filipovski and http://unsplash.com
If you follow my blog,
you know that I've recently published a series of articles about actually using Steem for everyday purposes:
- "Be The (Ex)Change You Want To See In The World"
- Up To 1,000 STEEM Available... ~Will Exchange for Fiat~
- Putting My ~STEEM~ Where My Mouth Is - Up To 1,000 Steem To Exchange
As Steemit users, we have an amazing opportunity. We can start helping each other convert between STEEM and fiat. We can bypass banks and exchanges, we can "stick it to the man"—simply by trading STEEM among ourselves.
We don't need no stinkin' exchanges...
Exchanges charge exorbitant fees and want to know every detail of your life.
Why are they so intrusive? In a word, government, an entity that makes immoral and unjustifiable claims upon all of our lives and all of our private transactions. To hell with them. There is a better way. We can exchange Steem and fiat privately. I've done it, and it's no big deal.
The story of today's success.
A fellow Steemian responded to one of my earlier articles on the topic. I suspect his interest was sharpened by the recent drop in the general crypto market. Earlier discussions, plus a study of his Steemit blog and interactions, had already persuaded me that he would be trustworthy in an exchange.
We settled on some basics while chatting on Discord—the total amount of Steem, the transfer channel for the fiat (PayPal), the net amount of fiat, and so forth—and then we proceeded with the exchange.
All went smoothly. After agreeing on the details—Steem, fiat, initiator, timing, etc.—the actual exchange itself took place in a matter of only a minute or two.
My counterpart in the exchange and I are both satisfied, even though we are on different continents.
In a sense, this is a big deal...
The transfer of Steem is instantaneous, frictionless, incurs no fees, and requires no permission or direct interaction by any third party. Transferring Steem is strictly a peer-to-peer event, no different than meeting someone in the marketplace and exchanging goods and currency.
The very cool thing is that a transfer of Steem can occur in the same room, or anywhere on the same planet, either way in pretty much a comparable amount of time. That time is a matter of seconds, and the Steem network is able to scale up and maintain that speed as more users join.
Why Not Exchange Some Fiat for STEEM?
Image courtesy of Vitaly and http://unsplash.com
Speed is no idle boast for Steem,
as can readily be seen if you visit http://blocktivity.info. Presently, Steem is outstripping the activity of all other blockchains.
The transfer of fiat in the other direction was also quite expeditious, although it inevitably racked up transfer fees - foreign exchange fees, PayPal transfer fees, etc. We discussed the possibility of looking into other methods of doing the fiat transfer, but at least PayPal did work - at a cost.
A more ideal solution would be to "go local."
Humanity now has the power to bypass banks and governments by beginning to use cryptocurrency on a purely peer to peer basis. In order to expedite that, we need to begin on-boarding all of our friends, family, and local merchants to Steemit. Then we can simply do all our transacting in Steem and SBD.
Some practical tips for getting started.
- Start small - don't exchange more than you can afford to lose
- Clear communication matters - agree in advance on all details
- Communicate privately via Chat or email
- Agree on the total amount of Steem or SBD
- Agree on the total, final amount of fiat - after all fees and etc.
- Agree on the fiat channel - in person, PayPal, "speed" of exchange
- Agree on who will make the first move
- Evaluate your exchanger using available sources - friends, Steemit blog, reputation
Are you ready to do your part?
We don't need Coinbase, Bittrex, and etc. We don't need their fees. We don't need their government regulation and reporting. We can do this.
Your Cash for My STEEM...
Image courtesy of Pepi Stojanovski and http://unsplash.com
I have some more STEEM available.
Who's interested? Let me know in the comments...
~FIN~
For more Steemit articles, please visit our Library Steemit Shelf - Just CLICK the shelf below.
Introducing: The SILVERengines proton - Image by @creatr
You are why I'm here on Steemit!
I have very eclectic interests and hope, over time, to write about them all.
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That's one step ahead. How did you decide to trust the individual ? Do you mind sharing your terms of agreement. Very helpful.
Just a thought how about Steemit facilitates the transactions with an algorithm ?
Here is my thought on how it should work
Now I am confused if this is still centralized or decentralized. Experts please comment.
If you read this article carefully, and the other articles in this series linked near the beginning, you can learn a lot of the details and the thinking that went into these transactions. Thus far, all have been quite successful, but it does take a level of trust at this point.
However, the sequence you describe fairly closely pictures a transaction that could be facilitated with an automated escrow service. I believe such a service could be encoded fairly readily. I am beginning to learn more about working with and coding for Steemit, and if no one else creates such an automated service, perhaps I will eventually get around to it.
I think trust is why we want a decentralized platform. I don't trust the banks even a penny. Also I think fees would be required to facilitate these transactions. Will have to think of an innovative way to keep it free.
Contributing towards coding for Steemit, that's an interesting point you brought in. I'm a software developer myself and pretty passionate towards contributing towards the blockchain world. Can you help me understand the technology stack required.
I can't help you much yet....
Other than to point you to my recent article on creating the latest version of my Steemit Library. In that article, you'll find references and information about SteemSQL, which along with Python will give you quite a lot of access to the Steemit blockchain.
Steem web resources blog. I'll go through it over the weekend.
That's not the one I meant, but that probably has a lot of good info also.
This is the article I was talking about:
It really depends on the trust between both ends. If not, it is hard to realize such transaction. I respect the spirit of trust between both of you :)
You are correct. Trust from end to end is necessary.
Actually, Steemit as a social media platform gives us quite a bit of insight into the character and behavior of others on the platform. This makes it easier to form a "network of trust" that makes transactions like this possible and successful.
True, it really depends on how the trust works. Understanding the overall behavior and others character on Steem can actually be a reference to an individual credential. Agree on that :)
☝️👍💯
Thanks for the encouragement, my friend! :D
You're so nice for commenting on this post. For that, I gave you a vote! I just ask for a Follow in return!
P.S. Thank you also for the re-steem! :D
BTW, I have some more ideas in this space that I hope to be sharing before long.
Congratulations!
As I was reading this, it occurred to me that perhaps we need to start a dedicated tag (something like #steemlocal perhaps?) precisely for these kinds of transactions.
I would also say this is where we all need to work together to build a Steem economy that's not just about exchanging Steem for fiat, but about Steem for goods and services. Like right now, I have both a steemgigs request out for some code work in exchange for Steem, as well as an item for sale via @steembay. Multiply that by some 10,000 or more, and we're suddenly starting to get somewhere!
Thanks for doing your part!
I'll have to check out your steemgig, my friend. Of course, it depends on the kind of code... ;)
But I couldn't agree more that we need to be using Steem for day to day transactions. The more it gets used, the more valuable it will be.
I'm working on more articles in this space... Thanks for your encouragement! :D
BTW, I'm happy to sell our product (the SILVERengines proton colloidal silver maker) for Steem... ;)
P.S. Speaking of #steemlocal, please be sure to check out what @pennsif is doing...
He has done a lot of local community organizing in the past, and is writing about and working towards these ideals here on Steemit. Have a look at his blog!
wow, it's very helpful and interesting post...
your idea is great...
thank you for sharing
Thanks.
welcome
Always happy to trade.
Since I published my first post about buying steem directly I have built up a small network of people around the world that I buy from regularly.
I am expanding the range of payment options to cover almost every situation and every country - cash, bank transfer, Amazon Gift Cards, TransferWise, Western Union.
The ultimate goal will be our 'own' internal system that removes the need for the 'middlemen' like PayPal.
It is coming soon... I can feel it in my bones.
A very intersting post indeed. I have done a similar trade from the old world to the new and it went very smoothly. It would be great in the future not to need fiat at all!
Why not... (With respect! & Just one guy's opinion...) (Reply to both @kus-knee and @creatr!)
Banks are often owned by The People, like the Bank of Canada, or open to public investment like the Royal Bank, and have a charters/laws they must follow. (Whether they do or not is a worthwhile discussion.) Steemit "prints money" too, but it has no charter and yet is subject to the same corruptions as the people at banks / gov't's. Not necessarily at Steemit Inc., but this will become a major problem...
For example, and this is just one potential problem; we ain't seen nothing on inflation yet. Just wait till Faceface's crypto comes out... I'm not saying crypto is bad. On the contrary, fiat (money by decree, then general agreement,) which all cryptos are, except that they have basically no controls, has enabled the industrial and information revolutions, as well as increased human population and longevity. (The graphs are amazingly correlated.) Without it, I can only imagine how so many could afford a home or car, health care, or more than 1 square a day even. Or could you picture everyone trying to get a business loan in gold?! Lol! Only 100% fool proof ideas / cronies would ever get money. Try to fund a hospital, or any charity on gold... Not to mention that all the gold is already being hoarded and owned by so few.
So I agree that there are downsides, but I thank G-d for fiat, and those who invented and create it, like when done by creative people at steemit for ex, or under mostly fair / trying to do what's right governments, (which I hope should occur more and more...)
Like with any and all technologies or ideas, it's really that the people are either the solution or the problem...
Hello, my friend. Thanks for visiting.
I couldn't agree more! Cut the banksters and guv'mnts out of the loop entirely... :D
That's amazing! Exchanges and their fees are a little painful especially when it comes to bitcoin which really sucks as we need to go through it before we can convert to fiat. Hopefully, your method goes mainstream and we can bypass high fees. I'd love me so steem but I'm short on cash from health bills. But I'm crossing my fingers that it won't be the case in the future!
As more and more people begin to actually use Steem, I think that informal exchanges like this will become more common. I'm also working on a follow-up article with even more ideas - stay tuned! :D
Very interesting and seems to be the way things are moving towards! Holding on for the ride!!!!
Thanks. ;)
anybody good enough to setup a "buylocalsteem.com" site?
sign me up!
How about you? :D
Thanks for your visit and comment. Some form of http://localsteem.com would be great...