Steemit, BitPay, and my Happy Dance!
I just pulled out a hefty pile of cash from my Steemit earnings; I have been in a powerdown mode, and have been looking at various options for turning my work here into tangible payout.
What I selected was BitPay; let me tell how that process works.
I ordered the card from BitPay back on June 2nd.
- Let me go into this process
1- I used my Poloniex account
2- I send my Steem to Poloniex and traded it for BTC
3- I immediately sent that BTC to my Electrum BTC wallet
4- I filled in the BitPay card request form
5- They requested a payment of $9.95 in BTC
6- I copied that information and send the BTC from my Electrum Wallet to BitPay
7- I waited about an hour before I received confirmation (by email) from BitPay, sating that the funds had trasnsferred
8- I waited until the card arrived today
- And here is what I did today
1- I activated the card at the Bitpay website (the PIN comes with the card)
2- I selected the Add Funds option to load the card
3- I entered the amount of USD I wanted to cash out; the interface tells me how much BTC is required
4- I selected the copy tab, and entered the information into the Send tab of my Electrum Wallet
5- I waited about half an hour for the BTC transaction to confirm
6- I waited another 5 (grueling) minutes for Bitpay to inform me the funds were available
7- I drove at 120 mph to the convenience store
8- I withdrew the funds in cash; you have to withdraw from Checking
9- I did my Happy Dance
The advantages of using BitPay
- That was a pretty quick process; an hour after I had the card, I had cash in hand
- Very convenient
- You can pull up to $750 at a single transaction; limited to $3000/day Regarding cash withdrawals here
Disadvantages
- You take a 5% hit on exchange fees. Suppose I had loaded $800 on the card; that was worth $840 on the exchange
- ATM withdrawal fees; Bitpay charges $2 on top of each local machine fee
- The two ATMS I looked at had a $200 transaction limit...so it would take at least 4 times the fees
- This is not a Galt option by any means; you register your SSN on signup for the card
Other options
I still need to look at localbitcoins as a method of cashing out. I do like what I'm seeing here with Bitpay, but I will need to look at ATMs that let me have ALL my money ;>
Congrats. Will check whether it will work in Ghana
Bitpay should have a list of countries they service
Brother Steve! You got it down to a science man! Next you just need to set up a 'Crypto-Uber' service.......get yourself a 'Conversion Convertible' and offer to do all the legwork for others to CA$H in their lucky chips! Seriously, anyone brilliant enough to unravel that algorithm above and effectively come out on the plus side deserves to be a millionaire one way or the other. Kudos to you bro! @stevescoins
I'm still trying to figure out how to keep everything i do off the books. I don't mind paying taxes...but I withhold payment for services that aren't rendered LOL
thanks Lanceman!
Congrats
That's one of my favorite videos! I guess you have to have a bank account to do all of this... also, can this be done through Bittrex?
yes, you could do it all through bitrex (you can skip the Electrum wallet)
Since Bitpay is a pre-paid debit card, you don't need a bank account
Will it work with any prepaid credit card? I've been trying to find out if I can transfer from Coinbase to a prepaid CC
no, you have to order the bitpay card (change I to you; I changed the other relevant steps)
1- I used my Bitrex account
2- I send my Steem to Bitrex and traded it for BTC
3- n/a
4- I filled in the BitPay card request form
5- They requested a payment of $9.95 in BTC
6- I copied that information and send the BTC from my Bitrex to BitPay
7- I waited about an hour before I received confirmation (by email) from BitPay, sating that the funds had transferred
8- I waited until the card arrived today
How good are you with bittrex?
my bitrex account got hacked once (had no money in it), so I've been using poloniex - they should have the same basic functions tho
Dear God... I hope I did this right!
OK Happy Dance Boy... You're going to have to walk me through this (remember, I'm an idiot) Now I buy Bitcoin right???
are you in your bitrex account?
Yup
ok, you'll want to send over some Steem to bitrex. have you done this before?
Drove 120mph to the convenience store? Wow! heh
it was my money, and I wanted it NOW ;>
serendipitous that this post came out at the same time!
https://steemit.com/money/@ackza/we-should-create-steemit-debit-cards-for-incoming-users-or-offer-to-refill-prepaid-visas-they-can-buy-when-they-send-us-steem-or