@jerrybanfield thank you for the detailed reply. The numeric example really puts it into perspective for me.

Compared to you I am not moving any large amount of steem between different pools of crypto currencies so I see that you have the need for a more cost-efficient tool to help you transfer funds to help the steemit community grow.

For now, and for me personally, I do not mind paying an elevated fee to support steemit at the moment. I do not mind purchasing on block trades because I hope that it will help steemit to develop.

In the long run, however, I hope that block trades can drop its transaction fees to stay competitive with other exchanges who provide a better (e.g.: more choices in currencies), more cost-efficient service. Now that you have explained it to me with numerical examples, I feel that it is a bit odd that steemit the producer of the blocks is more expensive than 3rd parties.

I wonder what possible explanations exist that warrant the price difference? Is Bitrex really that much more efficient?