With the high SBD prices, now is a great chance for users to stock up on discounted STEEM. For every 1 SBD, users are able to currently get $10-12 USD worth of STEEM!
Unfortunately, many users do not understand all of the intricacies of crypto-trading, and lots of users see the "Convert to Steem" option in their wallet, and think this is the way to get STEEM for their SBD. It is a way, but it is not the way. In fact, under the current market conditions - it is probably the worst way!
The "Convert to Steem" option in the user's wallet uses the blockchain conversion process to create new STEEM tokens from the SBD. The process takes 3.5 days, and after the 3.5 days are up - it destroys the SBD tokens and replaces with them with "approximately one USD worth of STEEM per SBD" (based on the median price from the witnesses).
"Approximately 1 USD worth of STEEM" is a LOT less than $10-12 USD worth of STEEM!
USERS SHOULD NOT BE CONVERTING SBD TO STEEM VIA THEIR WALLETS RIGHT NOW!
Everyone will get a lot more STEEM if they trade SBD for STEEM either via the internal market, via BlockTrades, or via an external exchange. Pretty much every other option is better than using the conversion at this point!
I submitted a pull request to the condenser GitHub repository to change the language on the SBD->STEEM conversion page.
Here is what it looks like (before/after):
The change has not been accepted by Steemit yet, but I am hopeful that they will approve the change. I will work with them to make any changes necessary to get it accepted. Hopefully we will see it live on the site soon!
The pull request can be viewed here:
https://github.com/steemit/condenser/pull/2137
Some final reminders for users on how to take best advantage of the current market conditions:
- Do not use the "Convert to Steem" option via your wallet. Use the internal market, BlockTrades, or an external exchange. I hope after reading this post, you understand why.
- Do not use 100% power up for the rewards option. Use 50/50 to get the maximum amount of SBD. If you want SP, you can sell the SBD for STEEM, then power it up. You will get 10x as much!
- Do not transfer any tokens to the Poloniex exchange. Their STEEM and SBD trading has been down for maintenance, so any tokens you send there will get stuck and be untradable.
- Be careful of any goods and services that accept payment in SBD. If you pay 10 SBD for a $10 shirt - you are paying 10x too much!
- If you are comfortable using different trading options (internal market, BlockTrades, external exchanges) - explore around to see where you can get the best price.