Ok this post is for crypto noobs like me (and all my friends irl), who want to see proof that Steemit is for real. You can trade your Steem into Litecoin which you can then exchange for US dollars on Coinbase.
So first you have to make a Coinbase account. Coinbase is the only place I know where you can exchange crypto with US dollars. You might have to connect your bank account like you do with paypal. Long time ago I tried to connect my paypal account to Coinbase and it never worked. It seems safe to connect your bank account though. As safe as paypal...
Ok so first you go to your wallet and you click the "BUY STEEM OR STEEM POWER" button.
That will take you to blocktrades Where you can convert your steem to Litecoin. You can convert it to Bitcoin too, but Bitcoin has expensive transaction fees, and since you are just turning it into cash, might as well use any crytpo that is not going to be expensive to transact.
Type in the amount of steem that you want to convert
For this guide, I am going to be cashing out 3.636 STEEM which is worth $20.00 USD, at this point in time, STEEM being worth around $5.50. (Jan 29, 2018)
Next, go to your Coinbase account, and navigate to Accounts.
Scroll down to LTC Wallet, and click Receive.
Click Show Address and then copy that string of numbers and letters to bring back into Blocktrades.
Paste your Litecoin address in the long box
And click Get a New Deposit Address.
Scroll down and type in your Steemit account name, and click Transfer using Steem Connect
Click Continue.
Type in your Active Key that can be found in your Wallet on Steemit, if it is not already saved into Steem Connect. I thought mine was, but I am being prompted to enter it again. You can find it under the Permissions tab on the left, in the Wallet page of your Steemit profile.
(EDIT)
OK so if you are having SteemConnect problems like me, (I told my browser to save the login info but it didn't?) and when you type in the Private Active Key it says that the password is invalid, you can go back to the Blocktrades screen and click Manual Transfer.
Do as it says, the "memo" is the code that the bot uses to perform the transaction:
You can refresh the Wallet screen after you submit, and see that you sent a certain amount of Steem to the Blocktrades Steemit account bot who is going to exchange it for Litecoin and then send you that Litecoin.
Now you just wait for your Litecoin to arrive in the Coinbase account.
Ok so 3.636 STEEM was actually only like 17 bucks by the time i did the transfer. It takes about 5 minutes for the Litecoin to arrive. Now go to Buy/Sell, and sell the Litecoin to your USD Wallet on Coinbase.
As you can see, Coinbase makes all their money on the "fees" that they charge to turn crypto into cash. I suspect that the IRS closely monitors what goes in and out of Coinbase. If you turn more than a certain amount of crypto into cash, (i think $25,000) Coinbase will send you a W2 to pay taxes on those gains.
Once we get business to start accepting crypto we wont have to go through this mess.
Ok so once its in your USD Wallet, you have to click Withdraw that to your bank account.
Now go to the the ATM and withdraw the cash.
