Introduction
At some point, the time will come when you will want to turn your hard earned tokens into cash. Only the when differs between different individuals. Some may choose to build their account for a long time while others may want to or be forced to cash out sooner. But the time will come for everyone. Whatever people choose to do with their tokens is their own business.
I've seen several guides on the old chain and here showing people how to turn their hard earned tokens into cash. None of them take certain very important things into consideration.
Cash out directly into fiat if you can
Always use a HIVE/fiat trading pair if there is one available for the fiat currency that you use in your daily life. You'll avoid unnecessary fees and, most importantly, also avoid stepping into a mine I will describe next.
Use an intermediary coin you use for nothing else
If there is no HIVE/your-fiat trading pair, DO NOT convert into coins you have a buy-and-hold position in or short-term trade in.
Why not? Because the tax authorities in nearly every country use FIFO (First In First Out) for tax calculations on profits on cryptocurrency trading. For example, if you use a HIVE/BTC pair for first converting your HIVE into BTC and then a BTC/fiat pair for converting the BTC into fiat, you won't be considered to have sold those BTC you just got from selling your HIVE but the oldest BTC you still possess for tax purposes. You could have BTC bought years ago at a much lower price that you plan never to sell or sell only much later that you now disposed of. You just triggered a completely unnecessary tax event. The worst part of it is that you may not even know let alone be able provide documentation to prove the acquisition cost of those bitcoins, which means you are going to have to set it to zero and pay the highest possible amount of tax on selling them even if you are actually selling them at a loss.
What you should do is pick a coin that HIVE has a trading pair with that you have never held or have always fully disposed of after acquiring it for the purposes of moving or exchanging funds using it.
Here's a list of the top HIVE trading pairs by volume:
Source: https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/hive#markets
As you can see, HIVE has trading pairs with KRW, USD or IDR.
What if HIVE has no trading pair against your currency?
USTD is a very common trading pair, which you can use for parking your HIVE income in a stablecoin worth USD. Most importantly, nearly every cryptocurrency on large exchanges has a USDT trading pair, which means you can swap your USDT for almost any cryptocurrency or many fiats on large exchanges.
Your final destination is your own fiat currency.
The most direct way is to convert the USDT you have into your fiat if possible. Binance, for example, has a good selection of fiat currencies you can swap your USDT for. From Binance, you can make a bank transfer to your bank account.
What if it is impossible to swap HIVE directly or indirectly for your fiat within a single exchange like Binance?
Then you're going to have to use an intermediary cryptocurrency for transferring funds between an exchange with a HIVE/USDT trading pair and a local exchange that has a trading pair in your local fiat currency.
It is recommended to not only avoid those cryptocurrencies that you do trading in or HODL but find an intermediary cryptocurrency that has fast and cheap transactions.
Not many cryptocurrency enthusiasts like to HODL Ripple (XRP) but Ripple (or something like Stellar Lumens (XLM)) is perfect for transferring funds fast and cheap between exchanges. Those two are ideal if your local exchange has either of them listed. Assuming it has, convert all of your USDT into, say, XRP, transfer all of it to your local exchange and cash out all of the XRP into your local fiat.
You'll have only one final step left, which is initiating a bank transfer from your local exchange into your bank account and you'll be done.
P.S. Remember to carefully document all the swaps because you're likely to have to report them in your tax return. You won't have to pay any taxes on them, however, because each time you'll be disposing of coins you acquired at nearly exactly the same price, which you can prove in the unlikely case you'll be asked to do so.