So, you want to exchange your Steem for Hive?

I have heard numerous people express an interest in cashing-out their STEEM and buying HIVE. If you're an experienced trader, you can stop reading now because I probably have nothing to say that you don't already know. However, if you are new to the trading game, please read on...

There is always an Exchange Rate to consider, when trading money, goods, or services. Each party needs to find value in the transaction or it is worthless. If I had several bicycles and wanted to trade them for cars, I probably could not trade 10 bikes and get 10 cars in return, as cars are more expensive than bikes. I'd probably have to give all 10 bikes, or more, to get one car in trade.

Here is a real-world example:

We have a coin in my country called a DIME, which is worth $0.10 and we have another coin called a QUARTER which is worth $0.25

So, if I have $0.50 worth of DIMEs (5 Dimes) and I want to convert it to $0.50 worth of QUARTERs, I will get 2 Quarters in exchange because:

(5 dimes x $0.10) = (2 quarters x $0.25) = $0.50

If I give you my 5 dimes and you give me 2 quarters in exchange, I have not lost any money. I still have $0.50 worth of coins, even though I just traded 5-cheap coins for 2-expensive coins.

That is exactly how the Steem-to-Hive trades are now. You lose no money, but have less coins because the new coins (HIVE) are worth more (each) than the old coins (STEEM).

Before I started writing this post, I checked the price of STEEM and HIVE with Bittrex:

• STEEM is worth $0.1629 each
• HIVE is worth $0.2586 each

Therefore, each STEEM is worth $0.6299 HIVE. So, if you have 74 STEEM to convert, it is worth 47 HIVE. The exchanges are not keeping 40% of your money for themselves!

Only if STEEM and HIVE were the exact-same price would you get 1 coin for 1 other coin. Note that there is usually a small fee on the exchanges, so you might only receive 46 HIVE in the end. But the exchanges have to make a small profit to stay in business, so don't complain unless their fee is too high! Actually, checking on the fees charged by the exchanges is part of your "due diligence" as a trader before you begin a transaction, or else you have no one to blame but yourself.

After the launch of the Hive blockchain, the first exchange I heard that was actually trading Steem-for-Hive was IONOMY. Compared to other exchanges, Ionomy has a surprisingly user-friendly, uncluttered, and intuitive interface and I was able to cash-in some Steem for Hive with no problems at all! The @naturalmedicine community was kind-enough to write an awesome tutorial on using Ionomy for this very purpose, trading STEEM for HIVE:

@naturalmedicine/lotus-tips-using-ionomy-to-trade-steem-for-hive-tokens

And here is an earlier review of Ionomy:

@jarvie/ionomy-review

I know our old friend Blocktrades has also been working on implementing a Steem-to-Hive conversion, but I am not sure if it is "live" yet or not. (The last time I went to their site, it was not yet working.) Also, I heard a rumor that another exchange or two, such as Bittrex, might follow, but not sure of the status there, either. So, if you have an old favorite, keep checking with them, but don't be afraid to give IONOMY a try, too!