Initially STEEM users were crypto-lovers mostly from Bitshares community - the ex project of STEEM creators.
Currently we have here lots of bloggers and people who possibly never used before cryptos and its their first time seeing this kind of "money".
Yet since exchanging STEEM to actually money needs the middleman in form of an exchange (Poloniex or Bittrex) at this point (probably it will change in future) then instead of changing everything to Bitcoin and then USD you can consider meeting few other cryptos.
Here is my short and fast suggestions on the ones you could keep eye on due to their communities or possibility of multiplying your money.
Of course keep in mind - cryptos may loose value too but putting a dollar here or there usually doesnt hurt and can only be fun and/or profit.
#Bitshares BTS- if you somehow missed this, its the first one to check. Big brother of STEEM with decentralized exchange called OpenLedger on top which wouldnt let any hacking of user accounts happen. Price really good now to enter.
Dogecoin DOGE - the coin thats famous for tipping and giveaways. Has decent community mostly around Reddit and trades almost everywhere. Seems its price just started going up since 24 hours.
Syscoin SYS - a coin that had loads of money stolen by Moolah exchange, yet still stays alive and has plans of creating best decentralized exchange. Project really worth checking.
Exclusivecoin EXCL - the smallest one in this list, a coin im with since 2014 that lost a lot in Banx/Cryptsy going down, restarted since 2 weeks on new technology. Cheap to enter now with giveaways on irc freenode exclusivecoin channel.
I do mashups of what to buy monthly with usually 80% right predictions on blog - Financial Underground Kingdom yet the list from this post you should rather understand as long term nice coins to follow not fast buy and sell ones.
There are a couple of unique coins to mention that many people would like:
Gridcoin can run on any standard PC and rewards users for doing scientific research, like searching for cures to AIDS, Ebola, TB, Zika etc.
Solarcoin rewards users fo generating solar energy, the community has some amazing spin off projects like ElectriCChain.org which is recording solar power production in real time onto the blockchain with IoT data loggers.
You lost me at Doge. There is nothing special about doge and the only reason you mention it is because its gone up recently? If you just buy stuff after it goes up you're gonna have a bad time.
doge much special
made crypto tipping popular
transaction fee just 1 doge
much fast with 1min blocktime
so good for small amounts
Steem has 0 transaction fees and confirms in under 3 seconds. Bitshares is just as fast. Even Ethereum is much faster than Doge. So Doge isn't the fastest, it's not the cheapest... What does it have going for it? It's a meme that had its 15 minutes of fame long ago. It's hard for one particular meme to stay relevant when there's new memes coming out every day. I suggest you reevaluate your dogecoin holdings. Wish you the best, and I really do hope Doge works out for you anyways.
Sure there are new coins around, with new shiny tech. But doge is close to bitcoin source code so it provides same code security and can profit from bitcoin patches and innovations while still staying wow. Dont see doge as an investment - dogecoin is a home for fun loving cryptocoin geeks. And regarding the power of the doge meme ... always remember ... doge spelled backwards is eGod ;)
It is useful for beginners in the world of crypto, thanks
Great discussion point. Interesting to see I'm not the only one that is thinking about this. The future is in blockchain. The issues is that people don't seem to care about the Trustworthiness of the current cryptos. This also happened in the internet boom. This is quite an interesting website I found: https://www.coincheckup.com. This site is really helpful in my coin research. I don't know any other sites with so much indepth analysis. Check for example: https://www.coincheckup.com/coins/Steem#analysis To check Steem Investment research report.