Since I learned earlier today that both Poloniex and Bittrex, two of the largest exchanges that support STEEM, had taken their STEEM wallets offline - I decided to find out why and find an alternative exchange that is still online... Success!
Thanks to everyone who commented on my previous post - suggesting possible exchanges to use. I found a list of sites that at one time exchanged STEEM, but alas most of them no longer support STEEM - so the options were limited.
The short answer is that I just spoke with an admin at Blocktrades, Dan, who informed me that:
From what I've heard, bittrex and poloniex are just having some problems with their wallet software. We (BlockTrades) put out a potential fix for problems experienced by bittrex, and they're in process of trying to get our fix and use it now.
He also said, on the topic of why the Bittrex price for STEEM was jumping around today:
Generally when an exchange disables deposits/withdrawals, it's pricing becomes more unreliable for a coin, because of the uncertainty of if/when coins bought on such an exchange will be accessible.
So there you go - probable answers to the questions raised.
My First Experience of BlockTrades
After playing with the exchange tool at BlockTrades I concluded that I would try to use them to exchange my STEEM into another coin that I can then exchange again into a fiat currency that I can use locally (GBP).
I initially attempted to test the system by sending 1 STEEM to my Bitcoin Wallet Via their exchange. However, the system failed because 1 STEEM is to small. I was not shown any warning of this in advance and I found the lack of information on the BlockTrades site on this issue a bit concerning. I emailed the BlockTrades Admins and got a quick reply that explained why the issue occurred and that they had manually refunded my 1 STEEM.
The BlockTrades system does not display exact fees and instead you choose the input and output currencies, which results in the final value you will receive being displayed - including any fees.
Dan at BlockTrades explained that the fee for converting STEEM into Bitcoins is quite high because Bitcoins are high at the moment and that it would be more cost effective for me to convert into LiteCoin Instead.
I went ahead and converted 904 STEEM into LiteCoins and sent them to the other exchange I am using to convert my Crypto Into Fiat Currency.
All that went just fine, but as usual I got stung at the other end - with CoinsBank charging me about £50GBP to covert my crypto into GBP and pay it into my Paypal Account. They wanted over £100 to pay it directly into my bank account! I have no idea how these fees are justified, but in any case I haven't yet found a cheaper option..
If you know of an exchange service that can take crypto and pay it out to a paypal or bank account with less fees involved then I'd greatly appreciate you letting me know!
Wishing you well,
Ura Soul
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