Converting Steem into ZAR with ICE3X.com
Turning our hard earned Steem earnings into South African Rand can be a bit of a mission since most of the exchanges are geared towards the larger markets such as the US and Korea. I found www.ice3x.com months ago thanks to a post by @louiscpt but only today had the opportunity to do my first withdrawal of Steem.
Since I'm a newbie to withdrawing crypto I thought I'd document the process for fellow South Africans who might not know about the exchange yet.
Step 1
You will obviously have to sign up for an account with ICE3X.com and proceed with the verification process so that you are all FICA'd and can start trading. You will have to enter all your details like address and bank account number which the exchange will need to transfer your Rands into once you've converted them from crypto. They'll want the usual copy of ID, proof of banking and proof of residence and my ticket was sorted out within a few hours.
It's probably also a good idea to make use of the two-factor authentication option for extra security. They use Google Authenticator which is easy enough to use.
While you're here you might as well get your receiving address for whichever currency you will be converting your Steem/SBD into by clicking on the "Deposit/Withdraw" button on the left under "My balances" and then clicking on "Deposit/Receive" whichever cryptocurrency you will be converting into. Once there you can generate a wallet address that you'll be using later when you've converted your Steem or SBD into BTC, ETH or LTC.
Step 2
Your next step is to log into your Steemit account go to your wallet to decide how much to transfer. You can send Steem or SBD but the conversion rates may differ so it's a good idea to do a quick calculation to see which is better. In my case Steem was getting a better exchange rate to Litecoin than SBD or Steem/ETH so I converted all my SBD into Steem via the internal currency market (Click on the three horizontal lines next to your profile pic on the right and select currency market.)
Step 3
Next you will want to use Block Trades to convert your Steem (or SBD) into Bitcoin, Litecoin or Ether so that you can send it to your ICE3X account. Click on the three horizontal lines account and select "Buy Steem" and a new window should open with the Block Trades website. You will then select Steem or SBD on the left under "Send" and either ETH, BTC or LTC on the right under "Receive".
Once you're happy with the conversion rate click on "Get a new deposit address" and Block Trades will check if your address is valid (It won't check that it belongs to you, just that it is a valid Bitcoin, Ether or Litecoin wallet address so be VERY careful that you've copied the receiving address 100% correctly from ICE3X.com).
Block Trades will now generate an address to send your Steem/SBD to, as well as a memo to tell Steemit where to send the funds to.
Go back to your Steemit account and under the wallet tab click on the drop down menu under Steem (or SBD) and select "Transfer". You will then paste the account name and memo generated by Block Trades into "To" and "Memo" respectively. The amount will be the amount you told Block Trades you wanted to convert. Finally hit "Submit" and sit back and wait for the blockchain to process your transaction. As I said above, I used Litecoin and my funds were converted and in my exchange account within a few minutes. It wasn't 100% what the Block Trades quote said but close enough and I understand that there are transaction fees and whatnot to take into account.
Step 5
Once the transaction clears you will see that your balance of BTC/ETH/LTC now appears on your ICE3X account. You can now convert your chosen crypto into ZAR by clicking on the appropriate currency pair under "Markets".
Enter the amount of crypto you want to sell, the price and hit "Sell" and your trade will be added onto the list of open trades where someone who likes the price you're offering will accept and you will receive ZAR. If you scroll a bit down you will be able to see the open "Buy" orders and if you like the price just match their offer and your crypto should sell instantly.
Step 6
The final step is to withdraw your Rands into your bank account. There is a minimum withdrawal amount of R250.00 and a small fee (0.033%) although you will pay at least R10.00 per transaction.
Click on "Deposit/Withdraw" once again and then on "Withdraw/Send ZAR". You will then be asked to confirm the amount after which you can hit submit.
This will bring you to a summary page where you need to input the transaction "hash" by clicking on the "Send" link and waiting for the email to arrive. Once you have it, paste into the field next to the word "Hash" and enter your 2FA code beneath it and hit submit.
Now all you have to do is wait for the EFT to clear and reflect in your bank account. I'm still waiting for mine to clear but the FAQ says it shouldn't be more than a few days.
There you go. I hope this helps someone out there!
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