RE: STEEM Dollar (SBD) Readying to EXPLODE!! Target $21.95 or higher
After 9 months in steemit and even reading the white paper, I still do not have a solid reason I can state for the need of having SBD. It was my understanding that it is like holding bonds and you are supposed to collect interest, but that it isn't actually paying interest. I also get them in my account for being active on steemit. Now the only way to move them to steem in order to power up is to send them to yourself. It's a strange thing, because I never see them show up in my steem account to power up. So I actually don't know why they are part of steemit and create this confusion and more concerning I don't know where they are going when I take send them to myself. I also don't know why they would be bid up if they essentially don't have any utility.
If I understand your question, you need to exchange the SBD to Steem before you can power up. You can directly power up from SBD with a service like Blocktrades. SBD has a little utility because you can use them to pay for certain services/give as gifts here on the platform, so it's probably useful to keep some "change" around. As for the price, it appears to be dropping ATM. Powerful forces are moving the value down, so we'll have to see what happens.