I have the same question!
I'm not a finance guy, I work in technology.
It isn't easy to cash your bitcoins yet, from what I understand you have to sell them to other people that want to buy it for cash. At this point you can't transfer them to a bank account.
But - this looks like it is going to change. Many people say its a bubble, a bubble is something over inflated in value, I think the value of bitcoin hasn't been realized yet - As of last week, the US is starting to explore how to regulate bitcoin. That's a really big deal, next week some Chicago financial market company operating a options and futures exchange is going to start offering access to bitcoin. Essentially, its not going away, rather, its becoming more popular.
The anonymity of bitcoin and its use for illegal transactions has cast a dark light on its existence, but perhaps one day it will be used as paypal is now. Then again it could all go down the toilet.
My philosophy is I'm going to take a little bit of money - 25-50$ per week for the rest of this year and 2018 and buy bitcoin to see where it ends up. This money I would spend on eating out, lottery tickets, etc, that way if I lose it all, no worries, minimal risk.
I'm drawn to the increase in its value, I bought $40 worth, it was 2.3 mBTC (a denominaton of bitcoin) on Monday, my $330 went up to $383 after I bought that $40 worth, right now its at $413!!!!
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I did a quick check there are a few cash out options:
http://thebitcoinmachine.com/sell-bitcoin/
https://localcoinatm.com/sell-bitcoin/