I often see posts on how to sell your steem or SBD on various exchanges. Those generally being Poloniex and Bittrex. These are very useful and there are plenty of them about.
But what about the next step? What if you want to get some of that tasty bitcoin mullah into your hot little hands so that you can spend it on life's greatest things?
Well initially that seems like quite the challenge. But it's not. At least not in Europe. I know there are some right funny laws in the states which seem to make it hard to go all spendy spend on the bitcoin front but here it is relatively easy.
The way I do it is to use a prepay debit card from Cryptopay This is a site that gives you a Bitcoin wallet and allows you to purchase a debit card which you can then load with Bitcoin and spend spend spend.
The Dashboard within the site is very user friendly
The 4 main denominations it accepts are Bitcoin, GBP, Euros and Dollars. To be perfectly honest I have never used the non bitcoin ones. The site can be used for buying BTC if that is what you want.
I have used it to convert BTC into GBP. To start, you deposit some BTC. If you are on an exchange select withdraw from your BTC wallet and put in the receiving BTC address from Cryptopay. You can find this by hovering over the balance of your Bitcoin account. You will see the Deposit box highlighted. When you click this it gives you a BTC address to send the money to and it is this that you put into the withdrawal address from your exchange.
So after you have withdrawn from your exchange your BTC will appear in your Cryptopay account. Note this can take some time as we all know BTC transactions can be sloooow
Now that is all very well but if you want to spend these super funky bitcoins you will need a debit card. Now unfortunately like other sites they charge you to buy one. Its a one off charge and is normally £15, however and please forgive the shameless plug if you use my referral code you get 25% off which means you get it for £12!
Once you buy a card it takes a week or so to arrive. Follow the instructions to activate it and receive your PIN and bingo, you are ready to go.
All that is involved after the card is activated is clicking the button to Load a card - This lets you transfer bitcoin to your credit card which you can then spend in any old shop. It's magic! You can also get virtual credit cards if you only want to use it online but where is the fun in that!
Remember if you use my referral link here you get it cheaper! I have no idea what mighty things I am meant to get in return. If its anything like genesis mining, a minor kick in the chuff will be my reward.
Is this similar to the Coinbase Shift Card?
I don't think so. Doesn't that one shift it as you use it? I am not sure though. This one when you load the bitcoin to the card it converts it to your chosen currency, in my case GBP. Then it's just a regular card but pre loaded with fiat? That help?
"When you use your Shift debit card to make a purchase, the equivalent value of bitcoin (based on the current spot price of bitcoin on Coinbase) will be debited from your Coinbase bitcoin wallet. For certain transactions, like gas purchases and dinner bills, Shift will debit more than the purchase amount, and will refund you the remainder when the final payment amount is settled." Cool, thanks for your post.
Ease of access is what I'm hoping for with VIVA. They're getting ready to launch their whitepapers and I've already ordered my card. Knock wood, it will be easy to spend on the card and hopefully just as easy to load it to buy more STEEM!
Yeah! Sounds good! I will have to check out VIVA, i had heard of the coin (i think)
If you get around to it come join the chat at https://chat.vivaco.in/channel/general you will see quite a few Steemians there. Yes, there is another VIVA out there but probably not the one I'm referring to. Big things coming.
I am trying to get into the pesky thing just now but not having much luck. Will try later on in the house as i am intrigued!!
@sykochica wrote up an excellent post about it and @williambanks wrote an easy to follow post using Game of Thrones My head is still spinning with all the learning.
Then I will definitely check them out. Give me some reading for the day! Weeeee!! Cheers lass!
I'll bear this in mind for when I want to extract cash from Steemit. Some of the others I looked at previously stopped offering this service. I expect there are legal reasons for this.
I only know of two including this one, I think they are ok because they limit the lifetime load of a card to 2000 pounds to avoid fraud. After that you have to get verified which involves transmitting id. Still if you can get 2000 in earnings you will be laughing. I actually expect to see more sites like this as bitcoin gets bigger. Or more ideally as steem or other alt coins get bigger!
I'd hope that more shops will accept cryptocurrency over the next couple of years. There are already a few where I could spend Bitcoin directly and I may try those soon
There are 2 I know of in Glasgow! I am tempted to try them. However in one of them I saw it looked as if they kinda charged a premium price for it. Once there are more that will settle down
Congrats, @meesterboom! Interesting, knowledge - providing post.
Why thank you very much. I remember the trauma when i first looked to see how i could spend this mythical money!
Actual mythical money:
Seems like a good way to move things around. I'll check it out.
Thanks for the info.
It has been flawless for me for almost a year
Good to know that. :-)
Thank you for posting @meesterboom.
Lovely well written article...appreciate the necessary information regarding the ingress/egress of this transition from the known and diminishing value to the unfamiliar and increasing value thing called currency.
Principle....Necessity is the mother of invention.
Wishing you and yours all the best. Cheers.
Necessity is indeed my friend!! Thank you for reading!!
In a pinch you can use a BTC debit card, but always ask if they accept crypto, you never know.
We need to be building the crypto economies and not using fiat currency.
I have the Shift card but pride myself on only having used it once. :D
I also accept BTC and Steem for all internet marketing I do.
Oh believe me I ask. I have sought out places here in Scotland that accept crypto. I have found a grand total of two in my home city, both of which assume that for the pleasure of accepting BTC i shouldn't mind if they bang an extra twenty five to fifty percent onto the price Sigh. I use crypto online more successfully though. I completely agree that we need to be using more but then you get into the whole what one scenario!
Thanks for the write-up about this service @meesterboom
Question - Are you aware of additional charges beyond the £15 cost of obtaining the card? Presumably they charge to convert from BTC to fiat, and charge for each transaction you use the card for? Thank you.
Hello!
Yes, sadly there are charges, not the worst out of the options I looked at fortunately. The first is a monthly 1 pound/euro/dollar maintenance fee for the card itself.
The second is a 1% loading fee to the card, so reach time you load your card it costs a percent of your loading amount.
Hope that helps!!
Thanks for the info. One day I hope to use it.
I hope you get to use it too!!
Good article, I think many will take advantage of this service and find it useful)
You certainly will if you want to spend that well earned cash :0)
Resteemed! Ty for breaking it down! This post was very informative.
A pleasure, i am glad you got something out of it!