Having the Bitcoin ATMs there is all good and well, but if the people are just buying to spend it at merchants that would convert it to Fiat, then it
would have zero influence on the price. True adoption needs more P2P trades without these ATMs adding high fees for the transactions. Do not get
me wrong, I am not saying it is totally bad for adoption... I am just saying that it is not the ideal method to put bitcoins into people's wallets. Now
the shops in the Mall should just give extra discounts for people paying in bitcoins...then we will see good adoption taking place there.
Well, the effect on the price should not concern us when we are talking about adoption. As for the argument itself, I think that trading is not as good as people trying to actually buy stuff with Bitcoin. And yes, it's sad that they have to sell their BTC for fiat for that. And come to think of it, if many people sell BTC to spend money on Holidays, the price is likely to go down even. Anyway, ATMs at least show some recognition that people might have money in BTC, which is not bad already. But I'd prefer something like PayPass for BTC instead, of course, as this way unnecessary transformations into fiat and fees could be avoided.