Experiments in Cryptocurrency

I have some useful info for other users who want ways to spend Steem painlessly!

My goal today was to use Gyft to convert Bitcoin into an Amazon.com gift card. They also offer dozens or perhaps hundreds of other gift cards as well, so check out what else they offer, too! Their checkout process connects through either Coinbase or Bitpay, so I needed to make an account with one of those sites in order to complete the exchange. I chose Coinbase for my experiment.

I started with an Electrum wallet on my PC and used the walkthrough @Shayne created in this post on how to use Blocktrades to finally begin experimenting with converting some of my Steem and SBD holdings. As noted above, if you want to use Gyft, start with a Coinbase or Bitshares wallet address in this process! I wasted a little bit in transfer fees by first setting up a local wallet on my PC and then transferring to Coinbase. Learn from my relatively-inexpensive mistake!

I also have an account on Golos where I have re-posted some of my Steemit material, and I used Changelly in a similar manner to BlockTrades to exchange my small balance of GBG for Bitcoin. It also worked equally well.

Once I had the right account setup, and the balance was verified, it was quite easy to use Gyft and pay with Bitcoin. Email verification was required for each site, but it wasn't a chore. The gift card code cleared on Amazon, and I was able to actually buy stuff with Steemit payments! My only complaint is the length of time it takes to verify the Bitcoin transfers. Steemit's near-instant transfers are superb.

With any luck, some of my purchases today will help me produce new media, or at least give me something to review! I'm not planning to cash out entirely though. I'm still here for the long haul.

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