One of the most confusing things about Steemit is how SBD vs Steem vs Steem Power all work together. I have been on Steemit for just over a week now (day 10! thanks for all the support a follows my Steemit fam!) and I still don't REALLY have a great understanding of it, but I have watched a few videos and posts and I made my first step. Yesterday I saw a video post from @craig-grant about how Steem Power works (STEEM Power Tutorial, in the flow) and it was a good kickstart for me. Time to POWER UP!

All I wanna be when I grow up is a !

Converting SBD to STEEM

It does not seem to be an easy task, but it is certainly a goal of mine for 2017. I realized that the first step I needed to take was to build my "Steem Power" up so I can raise my reputation. There are a few ways to do this, but I will just go over my experience to date. First off, I have not purchased any Steem, Steem Backed Dollars, or Steem Power. I decided to just use my curation rewards and the first step was to convert my SBD to Steem. There are quite a few options to convert your SBD to Steem, I decided to use the local Steemit marketplace to exchange my SBD for Steem. Click on the small arrow next to your Steem Dollars total to get the menu you see in the screenshot below.

I have no idea if the Steemit Market is the best place to do conversions like this, but it seemed like the easiest option to try first. As you can see I have a damn small amount of everything, just over 1 STEEM Dollar and this is what we will convert to STEEM (and eventually to STEEM POWER, its a 2 step process but you will see why it's a good thing in a minute).

The Power Up

Here is the Steemit Market, its pretty basic. I just filled in the amount of STEEM Dollars I had and then how much I bid (you can see there is a lowest recent number, I used that) and it calculates based off these things. The transaction went smooth and I now converted my $1.156 of STEEM Dollars to .746 of plain old STEEM. Now that I have that STEEM I went back to the Wallet screen and clicked on the arrow next to my STEEM total and chose to "POWER UP!".

Super Secret Tip

These are the basic steps you have to take to power up your STEEM POWER which is what gives you bigger payouts on your votes and your posts. I am going to continue to use my rewards on Steemit to power up my STEEM POWER. I am sure I will pick up some Steem on the exchanges pretty soon and I will probably also sink that into my STEEM POWER. Now here is the last tip, which I learned from @craig-grant, putting your crypto investment in STEEM POWER is great for a few reasons but almost the best is it is now SUPER secure! It takes weeks to pull your funds out of STEEM POWER and some might see that as a downside, but it makes keeping your investment there very secure and you get bigger payouts on Steemit too.

Lets get out there and build our reputation!

'Stache till you drop!

Here are a few of my recent articles on Steemit

 
Introducting Myself and this Amazing Mustache to the Community
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@cryptostache/introducing-myself-and-this-amazing-mustache-to-the-community-cryptocurrency-and-mustaches-ftw

Bitcoin Accepted Here Since 2014, But Then What?
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@cryptostache/bitcoin-accepted-here-since-2014-but-then-what

Make the first move; Owning my Own Keys
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@cryptostache/make-the-first-move-owning-my-own-keys

Liquidating My Crappy 401k To Buy More Crypto Currency
https://steemit.com/money/@cryptostache/liquidating-my-crappy-401k-to-buy-more-crypto-currency

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