I've been on Steemit since July of 2017. The more I'm involved with the community the more believe in the longterm viability of the platform. That being said, last week I decided to try and convert a small amount of Steem to fiat USD, mainly because I wanted to see how easily I could do it, and Steem has gone up since last year so it doesn't hurt to take a little bit of profit.
When I started on Steemit, I had almost zero knowledge of cryptos, exchanges etc. and honestly, my knowledge is still pretty limited. I think I was a bit intimidated on withdrawing funds, as it seemed overly complicated. It turn out it's not that difficult to do, but there still does seem to be a lot of steps and withdraw time.
Essentially what I did was use Blocktrades to withdraw some Steem to Bittrex, by converting Steem to Bitcoin, from Bitcoin to Litecoin to save on fees (I saw a suggestion to do this). And then move that Litecoin to Coinbase, then ultimately sell the Litcoin to USD that was to linked to my bank account.
You could have just used Blocktrades to send to Coinbase directly instead of sending to Bittrex. You can convert your Steem to BTC, ETH or LTC using Blocktrades and then sell your crypto for Fiat on Coinbase.
Still five steps too much. This process must be simplified a lot to increase the adoption of cryptocurrencies.
I couldn't agree more. Being able to go straight from whatever to Steem and back really needs to happen. I don't mind cryptos 'paying their dues' so to speak, since we know not all can or will be viable, but that said, it still needs to be easier, and not only the top coins at some point.
I've heard, though, that exchanges are charging ridiculously high fees to keep a crypto listed, so I think that's part of if, too. Which I guess more and more competition on the exchange front is needed.
If you are using Blocktades and Coinbase why didn't you just got straight to Coinbase? Why the extra steps to Bittrex, Bitcoin etc. Just go straight Blocktrades > LTC Coinbase > FIAT.