Thank you. I would liked to have seen it six months ago. I started using Bitshares, but found it more a learning curve than "traditional" exchanges that make trading easy. It wasn't until I re-considered Steemit and started understanding blockchain better that I'm also headed to "all in" with Bitshares. It reallyis an impressive paradigm shift in so many ways.
Learning about Bitshares via youtube and actually reading the Bitshares docs - what a novel idea - will likely get you pretty excited. Granted, low volumes is an issue, at least for the immediate present.
The bitAssets are fantastic and allow a little investor the same advantages as derivative trading houses - only in fractional amounts and with far better security. It you're considering margin trading... Be careful and have a solid understanding of how it works and consider much higher margins than traditional stock market margins.... One kind soul advised 8:1 for some issues. My loss experience proved his suggestion correct.
It only takes a couple of losses at exchanges through deposits not credited, trades suspended, and withdrawals frozen to know that the DEX is a better alternative. C'mon, get into Bitshares. We can all benefit through the lower fees and higher volumes. With Bitshares not only can we be our oun central banks, thanks Greg Mannarino for that idea, we can be our own trading houses. Just do it!
Learning curve can be brutal, but worth it
As you say, it can be quite steep. I myself also went the same path. I actually found BitShares before steemit, but like you I never fully got it until I joined steemit and realized that it's the same system under the hood.
As I learned about the system making steemit run, Graphene, I also learned more about BitShares and the way it works. So I joined in there as well, and I'm glad I did.