Preface
I believe most steemians already know who and what @blocktrades is. Chances are that you have already seen the page blocktrades.us when you must have tried to acquire Steem or sell / exchange it.
What if I told you that blocktrades is more than that?
In this post, i shall cover 3 different capacities in which @blocktrades is benefitting the steemit community in particular and the rest of the world in general.
- Blocktrades, the Company
- Blocktrades, the Steem Witness
- Blocktrades, the Crypto Exchanger
Blocktrades, The Company
Blocktrades is more than an account on steemit. It is a full fledge company named BlockTrades International Ltd. that is a registered company in Cayman Islands. It was founded by Dan Notestein.
The role and task of this company is to provide market maker services across cryptocurrency market. A crypto market maker is a dealer who undertakes purchase and selling of cryptocurrency assets at specific prices at all times.
In addition to this, BlockTrades International Ltd. also provides OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) software and consulting solutions to all those businesses that are looking to use the power of blockchain technology for their businesses. Not just blockchain technology, Blocktrades International Ltd. also serves general software developers who deals in C++, SQL and web-based software development.
Actually, BlockTrades OEM software provides APIs (Application Program Interface) for those who are looking to interact with almost all major cryptocurrency exchanges. API is a set of routines, protocols and tools that helps in building software based applications. The API is responsible for interaction of software components and is also widely used when designing GUI (Graphical User Interface) components.
So if developers / business owners on steemit are looking to build crypto based applications, they are more than welcome to contact BlockTrades. The company will prove to be their one stop shop in this matter.
If anyone is interested in checking out full documentation on their API, they can check it out at https://blocktrades.us/api/v2/explorer
Blocktrades, The Witness
@blocktrades is not just a regular steemian. @blocktrades is also a witness of steem blockchain.
As per steemd.com/witnesses, @blocktrades has 6th ranking in Witnesses list. This is a pretty awesome ranking. It means that a large amount of people have put their trust in @blocktrades to be a witness of steem blockchain.
One of the key requirements that is expected out of a witness is to keep the price of steem updated. Since a wrong value can adversely affect your rewards on a post. As per my observation, @blocktrades regularly updates the price of steem so that we can get our rewards right.
If you’d like to know more about who are witnesses and how do they affect the steem blockchain, then please follow my complete guide on subject here.
In addition to being a witness, @blocktrades is also a huge supporter of great content on steemit regardless of the reputation score and wallet size of the author. It is not an easy task to look out for amazing content from all over steemit and then curate it as well. Generally, I have seen that many people unintentionally mark their favourite authors on steemit and tend to provide that group of authors with 80% of their total votes while the rest are distributed to random steemians they come across. @blocktrades does not do that since the account genuinely cares about content on steemit and not who the author is. Furthermore, @blocktrades effectively replies to most of the comments posted on its blog, hence, fervently engaging with steemit community.
Blocktrades, The Crypto Exchange Website
As i have mentioned in preface of my post, most of you must have already been familiar with blocktrades website which is blocktrades.us. In this portion of my post, i would be writing a quick guide on how to use blocktrades website and highlight important features of their platform. Blocktrades is NOT a centralised exchange, which means you cannot keep your cryptos on it. It provides exchange services and transfer your cryptos from one wallet to another after exchanging them.
This is a big blessing in the crypto world and will save you a lot of trouble and hassle of making an account on a centralised exchange. Between huge transfer fees and other issues, central exchanges are prone to hack attack and you can lose your funds if you keep them there. Blocktrades, however, eliminates these encumbrances and provides you with the most secure and the most anonymous means of dealing in cryptos.
Website Address / URL
In order to use the service, go to https://blocktrades.us
Main Page
The main page of blocktrades has numerous options to click on. Let me explain each of these options. The top menu bar on main page is as follows:-
Now i will discuss each feature on main page in detail:-
Blocktrades logo
On left side of the page, there is blocktrades logo. If you’d click on it, you will be taken to homepage of blocktrades.
Quick Trade
Clicking on Quick Trade option will again take you to the main page of website. Where you can select which crypto you would like to exchange for which crypto.
Steem
On the right side of the Quick Trade option, you will see Steem which is further divided into 03 categories:-
Buy Steem Account :- Selecting this option will take you to a page where you can create your steemit account by paying either 4 Steem. Out of these 4 steems, blocktrades will deduct 1 steem as fee while 3 steems will be utilized to create your account (As of now). Please note that due to fluctuation in prices, it is advised to send a little over extra just to be sure. Any amount leftover after base fee deductions and account creation will be deposited in your account.
@blocktrades charges 1 Steem fee as mark up for their services when creating steem account. They also provide you with an option to backup your Master Password in blocktrades servers (But this feature is optional). You can read all about steem account creation on this post created by @blocktrades.
Buy Steem Power :- Another feature that the website offers is that you can directly purchase Steem Power in exchange of other cryptos. The process is pretty much the same like exchanging one crypto into another on the website, however it is more smooth, error-free and hassle-free process.
Buy Steem Delegation :- This feature will help you to get some Steem Power on delegation. At the time of writing this post, new delegations are not being offered until the older orders are filled in first but they provide exquisite services if you would like to get some SP on delegation. You can check the latest articles from @blocktrades for updates regarding steem delegation services.
About
This option will open a page that contains information about BlockTrades, how do they operate and their mission and vision statements.
Contact
Clicking on this option will take you to the contact information of the company. Blocktrades has a support email service in which they are willing to answer any questions / queries you might have. their support email address is support@blocktrades.us
News
Clicking on this will take you to the steemit account of @blocktrades where you can search their blog for latest news / updates about their services.
Language
As shown in the screenshot above, Blocktrades is multilingual and has support for English, Simplified Chinese (Mainland China) and Traditional Chinese (Taiwan) Languages.
Sign up / Sign in
Normally, signing up is not mandatory on blocktrades. However, there is one advantage of signing up, which is that you can see your previous transactions on blocktrades.
Please Note that the GUI would be different when the website is accessed from mobile devices. The screenshot I have taken is from desktop view. But fear not, all the options are there regardless of type of device being used but the options will be relocated in order to optimise the GUI
How To Use Blocktrades.us : Guide
It is fairly simple to use blocktrades.us. Their updated GUI is better than before and is self-explanatory enough for any newbie in crypto world to understand on their own. However, for the sake of it, I'd post a quick tutorial on how to use blocktrades exchange services in following paragraphs:-
On main page of blocktrades.us, you will see a window like this:-
You can choose from variety of cryptos that you can either send or receive after the exchange. For simplicity, I will use Ethereum to Bitcoin conversion.
You can get a prior estimation on how much bitcoins you will receive for a desired amount of ether. Please note that the final amount may change due to fluctuations in prices by the time you place your order. So be quick about it
For instance, if I would like to send Ether to blocktrades to have them exchange it into bitcoins, I will simply put the amount in Ether under the heading "Send"
Approximate values in bitcoins will be displayed on the right side under the heading "Receive"
Below this, I would be required to put in my bitcoin wallet address to which I would like to receive the bitcoins (the ones that will be converted from ether using blocktrades).
After I put in the receiving address, blocktrades will validate that address for me to make sure that I don't lose my funds.
After validation, I would click on the button "Get Deposit Address".
Once clicked, new set of options will be shown below this page, like this one:-
I will be given an address from blocktrades to send my ethers to (picture attached above).
After I transfer ethers to this address, bitcoins shall appear in my desired bitcoin wallet address after sometime.
Simple.. Right??
FAQs
How does blocktrades price conversions?
Blocktrades market engine scans multiple cryptocurrency exchanges' market paths to find the best possible price for you. So in short, blocktrades itself doesn't set the price and instead takes their conversion rates from iteration through hundreds of crypto market paths.
What if I send blocktrades a wrong memo or wrong address?
99% of the times, they will refund your money. Lets put it this way that if you ever had a chance to go to a fruit market and if you hand over 100$ to shopkeeper without buying any fruit and leave, would he/she return it to you? I don't think so but blocktrades does. This is the only service I have found so far that has made this their mission to facilitate crypto users as much as possible. Normal exchanges will swallow your hard earned cryptos if you make a mistake during transfer. @blocktrades, however, takes pride in facilitating its users.
Blocktrades has gone to extreme lengths to point out errors that users make during transactions and have taken measures to make a complete refund to users is such errors occur.
Ade Blocktrades Fees High?
Nope, they are not. If anything it is seriously economical for those who are trying to bypass a centralised exchange to deal in cryptos. The fees they collect for their services are minimal.
How many currencies does blocktrades support?
You can send bitshares, bitcoin, bitcoin cash, dash, ether, dogecoin, litecoin, steem and sbd
You can receive bitshares, bitcoin, bitcoin cash, dash, ether, dogecoin, litecoin, steem, steem power and sbd
Conclusion
@blocktrades is one of those accounts who actively participate and integrate with steemit community. Not only a steemian, @blocktrades is an outstanding witness and as a company, provides true blockchain technology environment for investors. The website is absolutely easy to navigate and customer care is the top most priority of @blocktrades.
Kindly consider to upvote, esteem and follow. Ig you'd like to add anything, please make a comment on this post.