there are exchanges where you can use litecoin/dogecoin (cryptopia) as base currency...
Bittrex kinda has ETH market, but not many pairs on that one...
Most of the time it's indeed BTC...
I wouldn't have done the power up, I have been using power down for months now...but good luck with getting that slider.
Thanks man, I really love this platform and will likely focus on a bit more Steempower for the next while.