How to Easily Turn Steem/Steem Dollars into Cash: Steem ➥ Blocktrades ➥ Bitpay Wallet ➥ Bitpay Debit Card
Today we turn hard work into hard cash
I have recently made a few tutorials on how to get some mining done and send your mining power towards earnings for some Steem Power, this is a huge benefit to do so you can earn more with Steemit. Now I like to help you guys find a route to get your Steem to work in your favor when it comes to the bills or purchases you may need to make. I will use my method for turning Steem into cash by my usage of Bitpay but you can work in your own ways once you get your Bitcoins out of this.
(STEP ONE) SETTING UP BLOCKTRADES SO YOU CAN SEND FUNDS
Lately I have choosen to send out earnings to Blocktrades a lot. My reason to avoid Bittrex and Poloniex like exchanges is mainly out of personal choice, you can go that route but I find Blocktrades to be very fair, fees are reasonable and its less hectic than battling the traders for your sell offs. To me Blocktrades is a bit more easier of a way to get my funds to my Bitpay wallet.
Sign up for a Blocktrades account
First part in this step, go to BLOCKTRADES and look to the top right corner of their site for the SIGN UP option. Put in your email and password choice information there and then go to your inbox to confirm the email sent to you. Now you can SIGN IN and you can keep better tabs on your coin exchanges this way.
BLOCKTRADES Official Site is here to sign up:
https://blocktrades.us/
Now that you have an account and its confirmed, sign into your BLOCKTRADES account. With the SIGN IN option at the top right hand corner of the website.
Once your in you should be on the QUICK TRADES landing page, if not the tab for this is QUICK TRADE in the menu at the top left hand side of the site. You should be looking at a page that looks like this:
Now in this page make sure the SEND option is selected to STEEM or STEEM DOLLARS whichever option your sending from your Steemit Wallet (do not worry about the amount number, that is for calculations and not something to concern with)
In the RECEIVE section on this page, click on the coin pull down and select BITCOIN (remember there is a mining fee involved so I suggest only move a minimum of $20 worth here so you can cover that fee).
Once you get that set you will see a RECEIVE ADDRESS option next. Here you will put in your BITCOIN wallet address that you would like the converted Bitcoin to go. For non Bitpay users you can put your wallet you use here but we are about to move on to Bitpay for the rest of the tutorial.
If you do not have a Bitpay wallet you can download and set one up here:
https://bitpay.com/wallet
Once you have a wallet, open your wallet and look at the bottom of it for the RECEIVE address. Copy and paste that address and return to BLOCKTRADES and input that info into the RECEIVE ADDRESS option. Now that you have done that you can now select GET DEPOSIT ADDRESS. Leave this page open, you will need to return back to this. Now we need to go back to your Steemit wallet in your Steemit account.
(STEP TWO) SENDING YOUR STEEM/STEEM DOLLARS TO BLOCKTRADES
Once your on Steemit and still have your BLOCKTRADES account open in another tab, we need to go to your wallet and now decide are we sending Steem over to BLOCKTRADES or Steem Dollars. Whatever choice you made in the setup process over at Blocktrades is where we will focus in our wallet now. (note: For Steem and Steem Dollars you have to setup for each individually in Blocktrades because sending addresses will be different for each currency)
Click now on the option pull down menu on STEEM/or STEEM DOLLARS in your wallet balances. You will see and option on that menu labeled TRANSFER. Click on TRANSFER and now input the info you were given from BLOCKTRADES after you clicked on GET DEPOSIT ADDRESS. Make sure you inputted everything correctly and if all is well then click SEND and your funds are now being sent to BLOCKTRADES for automatic conversion and being sent directly to your Bitcoin wallet you provided.
This process takes a few minutes, sometimes longer if Bitcoin as usual is congested but fairly reasonable time. You should see your funds in your Bitcoin wallet not long from then. You can check the status of the transaction in your BLOCKTRADES account as well. If you did everything stated here you should now have the option to leave your coins in your Bitpay account or move to the next step to load your Bitpay card within the wallet.
(STEP THREE)[OPTIONAL] GETTING A BITPAY CARD AND LOADING YOUR WALLET FUNDS ONTO IT
This is a more or less optional section but one you probably will want to take advantage of if you would like to use your funds in a more real world manner. Who wouldn't like to take their Bitcoins to Wally World and spend some duckets on some food? right? lol. The process on this one does take a week or so for your card to arrive if you don't have one yet. The card costs only $9.95 in Bitcoin to order and the fees on the Bitpay card has not been bad at all and I been using mine for a couple of week now, no complaints.
First step, ordering your card
In order to turn your Bitcoins from your Bitpay wallet into real world instant cash...you will have to first purchase their card. You can get started on that process by following the link but remember its 5-7 business days before you get it and can activate it.
To order your Bitpay card click here:
https://bitpay.com/card/get-started
Once you receive your card you must follow the instructions with it to activate it, very simple and just like most prepaid or debit cards so I will let you just follow those instructions.
Step two, link your card with your Bitpay wallet
Once your card is all set up. Go into your Bitpay wallet, click on the CARDS section on the wallet home screen and follow the link there that says CONNECT MY BITPAY CARD. There is several options there to add your card but all self explanatory so I will leave that up to you on which method you prefer.
Once you have your card linked, you can now go into your card from the main screen and it will show an ADD FUNDS button, as long as you have Bitcoin in your wallet and you take note of the small fee to load the card,
you then just input the ammount you want on the card and now you can use those funds anywhere.
For more on Bitpay fees:
https://bitpay.com/card/resources/Fees.pdf
And for most comment questions about the Bitpay card:
https://help.bitpay.com/bitpay-card
Other than that, should be pretty easy to use. I have had no issues using my card, online payments work great, no transaction fees for using it in the real world so far. Its actually been a joy to use. This is more for US Residents but you can twist this tutorial for any card you may want to use. I just use Bitpay as a suggestion and a way to walk you through this setup, should apply to any wallets and cards you may own. Hope that helps!
upvoted, and resteeming, I need to go over this later.. great info thanks
Thanks for the resteem and let me know if you need any help. This is how I roll now a days to pay the bills, I done many other ways but this seems to be the easiest for me and less of a headache lol
Thank you for the information..
Anytime, hope that helps you out, I try to write these type of tutorials now and then
Very useful and clearly laid out post. I do have a question: what if I don't want to use an exchange? Is there no way to pay my Steem to someone and have them send BTC to my ... let's say, Electrum wallet? I was searching for one when I came across your post.