It is much easier to get crypto than it is to convert it back into fiat.
Governments want to regulate it, tax it, and restrict it. I'm in the Philippines where cryptocurrencies are much newer than in much of the western world, and locals, thanks to steemit, are just starting to really get into it.
That's fantastic for steemit and cryptocurrency as a whole, but one major reason that steemit is spreading and thriving here in the Philippines is less about the long-term investment, and more about the immediate return. People need jobs, they need better wages to feed themselves and their families, and putting some of that back into investment through steem power? Heck yeah that sounds great!
The Problem
The problem however is that as of now, the only really well known way of converting cryptocurrency into fiat (pesos in our case) is by using a website called coins.ph.
People complain of it's high fees, slow verification of identity, the fact that there even IS an identity verification, and most of all the daily limits. Some limits are as low as only P2,000 per day based on which step of the verification process you have been confirmed for.
One individual in the Philippines not too long ago was rewarded with a very high amount of steem/sbd for a post explaining an expensive surgery he had to undergo. Some people thought he had scammed the steemit community due to the fact that a large amount of it was never withdrawn. He responded of course, stating that with the methods available to him for withdrawal, he had already exceeded the amount he was allowed to convert into fiat and thus he figured he might as well keep the rest in Steem/Steem Power until he was able to withdrawal again. That makes sense.
It also sucks. Especially if he needed the money urgently for his medical bills, medicine, equipment, etc. There should be a better way!
There Is An Alternative
There is a bitcoin ATM in Makati City, Metro Manila. This is the business district of the Philippines and pretty much everybody that's visited the Philippines or lives here, knows it.
If you follow my blog you know that I attended and was one of the speakers at the 2nd SteemFest held in Manila on August 5th. One question was asked by a somewhat newcomer to the platform, about how to withdrawal steem/sbd into fiat. One of our other speakers demoed thoroughly the process using Coins.ph but people still wanted to hear of other alternative methods.
I chimed in and mentioned that there was an ATM here in Makati and that it also proved a very reliable method for converting crypto into fiat. Unfortunately however, I was speaking only based on research, not from personal experience. That left much to be desired by the attendees as you might would expect. Trust with money if of course hard to come by.
I decided right then, that I had to be the guinea pig and test this out myself to make sure it was legitimate, was functioning, safe, and get all the details to better help the rest of the community in the Philippines.
Today I Did That. I went to Makati, I tried the Bitcoin ATM.
It was a great experience and I had decided whether it was or was not; I'd be making a post about it in order to let everybody else in the Philippines know about it, for better or for worse. So without further delay, here are the steps and information for using the Bitcoin ATM to convert any crypto, but more specifically steem/sbd into fiat.
How To Withdrawal Fiat from Steem/SBD Using the ATM
Step 1
Write amazing original and Koala Tea content on steemit, network, make friends and gain worthwhile followers.
Step 2
If you haven't already, download and install a bitcoin wallet onto your mobile device, my wallet of choice for my mobile is Electrum which you can read more about by clicking here. Make sure if you do not already have one installed, that you install the Barcode Scanner by ZXING, this will be necessary later.
Step 3
After you have installed the bitcoin wallet, go to the Receive tab and get your mobile wallet's bitcoin receiving address.
Step 4
Send the Steem/SBD that you would like to convert to BlockTrades by going to blocktrades.us and change Send to Steem or SBD depending on which you wish to withdrawal into fiat, and change Receive to Bitcoin as shown below. Then enter the receiving address that Electrum or the mobile wallet you selected provides, in to the Your Receive Address field.
It will tell you to send any amount to @blocktrades and to include a unique text-string in the memo field. To do this simply navigate to your wallet on Steemit, and click on the drop-down for Steem or SBD and then send the amount per the instructions on the blocktrades website.
You can of course use another service such as Polo or Bittrex but for simplicities sake we've used @blocktrades as for me I feel it is simpler than the others particularly for our requirements.
Step 5
After you have sent the steem/sbd to @blocktrades the website for blocktrades will update to show you that the transaction has been processed. Once this has happened, go to blockchain.info and type in the transaction ID to check for the # of confirmations your transaction has received. Also check your mobile bitcoin wallet to make sure that you have received the amount expected.
Wait for a few hours, maybe less, until you have at least 6 confirmations. This is the # required to be considered secure for most transactions.
You now have converted your Steem/SBD into bitcoin, put it on your mobile device, and are ready to convert into fiat!
Step 6
Get in your car, or hail a taxi/uber and tell them to head to Sunette Tower Condo Suites in Makati on Durbon Street off Makati Ave.*. If your driver or you are not familiar with where that is, it's walking distance from the most well-known red-light district in metro-manila, P. Burgos Street. Click the image below for a link to google-maps with an exact location/address.
If you turn onto Durbon Street from Makati Ave. you will see it on the right just 15 meters after the turn. If you see the Crazy Horse or Jose Cuervo Tequileria like in the photo below, then you've gone too far and should turn around, that is officially the red-light district.
If you somehow miss those, or if you turned from P. Burgos then you may see Plan B, again, you're in the wrong place and probably not an area you want to be in. Get to Durbon Street just 15 meters from Makati Ave.
Once you've found your destination you'll see the sign below, thank goodness! You Made it!!
Parking is hard to find in this area aside from parking on the side of the street, so if possible I'd recommend you take a taxi or Uber.
Step 7
Enter the building and head to the reception desk. You'll want to inform the night-manager that you plan to use the Bitcoin ATM and will need the wifi password in order to securely process your transaction. He will likely not tell you the password, but will enter it into your mobile device on request. As you can see the lobby area looks like any other hotel or condotel lobby.
Step 8
Approach the Bitcoin ATM and pull out your mobile device having already connected to the wifi. Tap the screen on the ATM to get started. You'll want to select Sell Bitcoin as this ATM also allows you to create a wallet, and buy bitcoin using credit-card or cash!
There are instructions posted on the machine screen as well as above it.
Step 9
You will be asked for the amount you wish to withdrawal. Select any pre-defined amount, or enter your own custom amount in Pesos. Today I selected 20,000 Pesos to test it for everybody. That is a significant amount for most filipino steemians however not so much that I wasn't willing to take the risk in case it failed on me.
Step 10
You will be asked to verify yourself. Don't worry you don't need to show a Government Issued ID, or scan your fingerprint or anything of the sort. You only need to enter your cellphone number to receive a verification code. The code comes nearly instantly and you simply type it in and proceed to the next step.
Step 11
A QR code will appear and you will be asked to send the amount of BTC necessary for the amount of Pesos that you requested. Open Electrum or whichever wallet you installed and click the Scan button and point it at the screen to scan the QR code.
This will tell your mobile device the amount necessary to send, to which address, and how much of a transaction fee to pay. You can adjust the transaction fee if it appears to high (which it did in my case and I reduced it).
Click PAY on your mobile device and the ATM should automatically update and show you a new screen confirming payment.
Step 12
Collect your receipt if the amount that you selected was greater than P4,000 which is the minimum for instant transactions. Your receipt will tell you how many BTC confirmations are required before you can claim your cash and provide you with a Redemption Code.
Step 13
If your amount was greater than P4,000 then you may have to wait for BTC confirmations. There are several places to grab a bite to eat nearby. There is a Pizza Hut, Wendys, Shakeys, among others. I recommend that you take the receipt and go enjoy a meal for an hour or so. For 20,000 Pesos, I only had to wait for 1 network confirmation, for larger transactions you may have to wait longer, be aware of this.
Step 14
Return after you have enjoyed your meal and approach the Bitcoin ATM once again. Touch the screen and this time select Withdraw Cash. Enter your redemption code as displayed on the receipt you received earlier.
Step 15
Enter your cellphone number for "identity verification" type the verification you receive via SMS and proceed to the next step.
Step 16
If you have followed all of the above instructions appropriately then you will here the click click click of cash being counted in order to be dispensed and you will soon see something like the photo below. Collect your cash.
Step 17
Take some photos to show off to the rest of the Steemit Community that it does in fact work, you are happy about it, and flaunt that fiat just a little bit.
That concludes my guinea pig test for the Philippines Community. I hope it was all helpful and motivates you to keep producing excellent original quality content on Steemit. The fees as you can see in the images above for the ATM are very reasonable, no ID verification is needed, and it's in a central part of the Metro. PERFECT!
Please let me know if you have any questions below in the comments. I hope that you also are able to take advantage of this Bitcoin ATM and are as pleased with the results as I was.
Don't forget to Re-steem this post to spread this knowledge to all across the Philippines for whom it may be helpful. Distribution of valuable information is a #1 priority.