Time To Buy More Steem? But Where?
I’m used to making risky trades, but I panicked today a little bit. I decided to buy more Steem as the Steem/Bitcoin rate is relatively low, near this year’s bottom. And because the end of the year is mostly positive in the investment world, maybe other “Santa Claus Rally” will begin.
Good times to come
Maybe not such huge rally as the last year’s hype, no sign of another mania, but maybe a longer, cautious, gradual uptrend can start. I wrote about Bitcoin price seasonality here. July, August, and September yielded poorly in earlier years, meanwhile, October, November, and December were mostly great.
First I had to crack my Bitcoin cold wallet, that was already difficult enough because the 11 years old computer I use for offline keys storage didn’t want to work. But the real surprise came as I bought my Steem with my Bitcoin on my Binance account as in earlier cases. Withdrawals were suspended, due “wallet maintenance”, allegedly.
Bad to be your customer
Later I read it is suspended since at least the 20th of September, I don’t think such a “maintenance” can be really a simple maintenance. I don’t know what the real reason is but I felt really furious. Why did they wait with the notice until I bought Steem? Why they couldn’t warn me earlier, before the buying? What type of customer care is that?
I can imagine also an official announcement board on Steemit.com or Steem.io, where people can read if something important is happening beside the forks.
Offer and bid
Now, if I really want Steem – and I want it –, I have to sell it again, transfer the other crypto to another exchange, eventually after opening another account. So I sold it again. But you always lose money on the margin between offer and bid (the best selling price and the best buying price), or you have to put your offer and wait, who knows how much.
Then you lose on the exchange fee, on the transfer fees. I haven’t calculated all the expenses, but I’m sure I lost at least 0.2-0.3 percent, a couple of dollars worth a decent hamburger. Fortunately, I wanted to change only some hundreds of dollars in Bitcoins to Steem.
The FAQ
STEEM purchases made via steemit.com are facilitated by BlockTrades.
bitcoin can also be exchanged for STEEM on external markets such as Binance, Bithumb, BitShares, Bittrex, Changelly, GOBADA, GOPAX, HitBTC, Huobi, LocalBitcoinCash, Poloniex, Shapeshift.io, UpBit, and Yensesa
– writes the FAQ of Steemit.com.
From this exchanges, I registered earlier on two, Binance and HitBTC, and on this two there is no Steem withdrawal today. I think on HitBTC, Steem transfers are halted for many months. I made a registration on Binance in May because I saw I couldn’t retrieve Steem from HitBTC.
(I had the same problem buying Siacoins in spring and not being able to transfer it. And when was they told me about this issue? Yes, after having bought it, of course.)
Exchange fee two percent
I checked Blocktrades today, there was a price exactly two percent above the Steem/Bitcoin market price indicated on Binance. On exchanges, I see mostly 0.1-0.2 percent between offer and bid. Two percent is an interest of a whole year ultimately. And I don’t see if somebody is guaranteeing the success of the trade. Is there a chance of money going lost? I trust more in exchanges, they seem to have more clear security measures.
Last time I wanted to exchange USD to Euros by my traditional (non-crypto) brokerage firm, they made it for a price with one percent above the international exchange rate. But after local business hours, in the evening, they wanted to make the exchange for three percent plus. I hoped crypto was better.
Running to the exit
So, I bought back my Bitcoins for Steem, maybe I was the guy who pushed the price – accidentally and temporally – very close to 0.80 USD/Steem today. Because there were only a few buyers with offers of 10-30 or 40-50 Steem, there was very poor liquidity. But I learned in the last years, it wasn’t safe to deposit many cryptocurrencies on the exchanges, so I ran to the exit very soon. (And there is this Binance-Tether issue I couldn’t really understand…)
Which exchange should I choose? Where should I change BTC to Steem? What do you think? Please comment.
Update
One day after, I decided to use Blocktrades due lack of time for experiments with new exchanges. But I divided my small capital in 4-5 even smaller portions for security reasons. I changed the first portion to Steem. Price premium of Blocktrades was approximately 2.3 percent.
Disclaimer:
I am not a financial advisor and this content in this article is not a financial or investment advice. It is for informative purposes only, or simply to make you think, entertain, increase testosterone and adrenaline level. Consult your advisers before making any decision.
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Somebody I think maybe @mightypanda told me you can buy steemmonsters with credit card and then maybe sell them for Steem. It sucks we have so many users and nobody is selling their steem. I think it would be awesome if we could buy Steem with credit card directly.
Well, you should always check the wallets of any centralized exchange you are gonna use. Whenever there is a problem with any blockchain, their wallets get on suspension automatically. But have to be restored manually, I guess.
So it looks like this suspension took place with HF 20 debacle and haven't been restored since. Did you check Huobi? In case you are patient enough, you can use DEX like Bitshares, or Rudex.
Where can I check the wallets of exchanges? Any list of them?
Whichever wallet you want to check on any Exchange, go to the Deposit / Withdrawal function of that particular coin and you will know if the wallet is up at that time.
I hope, you knew this already.
Honestly Ive always enjoyed using Bittrex. The most volume is on Binance but Bittrex wallets seem to have more uptime then Binance especially when it comes to Steem. Bittrex also supports SBDs.
Posted using Partiko Android
Why would you bother buying Steem?
You are one of the big earners here looking at your earnings per post.
No, in reality I'm paying bots to be visible.
Lol did you see the bid bots. Probably paid more for the post than made on it.
Posted using Partiko Android
That's the message I've been getting for a while now. Thing is they suspended both deposit and withdrawal a while back. One day I checked and I noticed I could deposit. I didn't even bother to check withdrawals as I assumed they worked together.
Now, I've got a tiny amount of Steem out in the open cold. Terrible!
I don't understand but I just have to click it anyway. So annoying
About blocktrades, I stopped using it a while back. Rates are overly high. For someone who makes roughly $100/month, I need all the cents I can get.
I don't know any alternative though.
Steem on brother
Blessings
That's about as bad as accidently selling your alt coins on the Monero market instead of Bitcoin market like you intended, and now you own a ton of Monero.
Yeah, this reply was from experience. 😂
Yeah I used to use Binance to buy steem. It was the most liquidity and lowest fees. Block trades doesn’t seem very transparent on the fees and spreads, plus isn’t as liquid for limit orders.
I had heard a couple days ago binance had reopened steem withdrawals. You’ve tried since then?
Posted using Partiko iOS
I tried yesterday. Thank you.
There is a lot of complication around purchasing of crypto. It is nice to find a reliable way to fund a wallet and exchange that works and to just stick with it. However, there always seems to be new obstacles. The fees I can relate to, there is obviously money to be made since we all gobble up these fees knowing the money to be made far surpasses the investment to make them.
It is getting better and DLT is growing like crazy. Faster and less expensive algorithms are being created and adapted. The world of digital currency and transactions has just begun. Things are changing quickly and for those of us on top of the game there will be rewards.
It thought the wallets were down cause they were waiting till hardfork 20 was stable
Maybe, but hardfork is also completed since some weeks now. And Binance suspended withdrawals also in earlier cases .
The "Santa Claus rally" of 2017 was most likely influenced by the enormous price inflation seen in Bitcoin that year, so I wouldn't gamble on that happening again.
Note the word "gamble". I'd strongly urge you to put your money to more productive use.
Steem on Steemit, is productive for you?