Topic: Bitcoin ATM: any news after San Diego? - page 3. (Read 12897 times)

Chase has about 16,000, BofA has about 18,000 and Wells Fargo about 12,000 ATMs. Between just three banks they can cover nearly every major city in the free world. Major networks like Star and Pulse increase that number to over 4 million locations worldwide. It will be all but impossible to compete with that kind of system. If the manufacturing cost of each Bitcoin ATM was $1 then you would need $4 mil in startup costs plus a distribution and maintenance network comprising tens of thousands of employees. The reality is staggering. Billions would be needed to be competitive.

You still hanging around?

    I thought there was one in Cyprus for a while?     

The first Bitcoin ATM in the world will be placed in Canada, probably in downtown Vancouver somewhere.

Nice negation work here.  I enjoyed parsing this.

That's the sign of a scammer or an underfunded business which will probably fail.

Until they can ship as soon as you order, or slightly before, don't buy. Especially with Bitcoins.
Especially for a "Bitcoin ATM". It's not like there's a shortage of locations that don't already have a Bitcoin ATM.

I think there was a store about a BTC ATM in cyprus in the media a while ago.

This going to help spread Bitcoin much farther and wider than ever before.

Spam that ATM around the world.

A small update on the topic: http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/28/robocoin-the-first-20000-bitcoin-atm-now-available-for-pre-order/

[/quote]
RoboCoin, a kiosk that allows you to trade Bitcoin for other currencies, is now available for pre-order and should be shipping for “Fall 2013.” Lest you decide to become the Bitcoin bank for your neighborhood, remember that the machine costs $20,000 ($18,500 for early birds) and can currently trade BTC for USD.
The device is essentially a hardened, ATM-like machine with biometric time locks and privacy-shielded touchscreen. It can accept and dispense cash (and is “International denomination-ready”) and is Wi-Fi and 3G-enabled.
According to a blog posting the team is ready to change the way Bitcoin is bought and sold.
“RoboCoin represents a compelling investment for business owners,” they write. “They’ll earn a percentage of transactions and attract Bitcoin’s loyal user-base, while also offering unprecedented access and ease-of-adoption to Bitcoin newcomers. Furthermore every Robocoin on the market increases Bitcoin liquidity and usage, putting upward pressure on the digital currency’s valuation, awareness, and legitimacy.”
Robocoin first surfaced in in San Jose at a Bitcoin conference and is directly competing with Lamassu Bitcoin Ventures Bitcoin ATM. This model connects directly to Mt. Gox or Bitstamp, two BTC exchanges, for instant funding.
Having a real, working ATM will add a considerably energy to the Bitcoin market. While these units are arguably expensive (a cheap ATM tops out at about $3,000) it’s clear that the back end is what matters here and not the box. Wheeling one of these into, say, a hacker conference or other con would get you plenty of traffic and improve the standing of Bitcoin in general. Once BTC to other currency transactions are commonplace, it’s clear that cryptocurrencies may have even more of a fighting chance.
[/quote]

Following up on Mr Davis, I had a long talk with the U.S. FinCEN about the definition of a "money services business" in regard to the physical bitcoins that I'm selling (like Casascius but with a proprietary system to prevent counterfeits/theft).  

They regulate any currency exchange and they view any company that accepts dollars and gives people bitcoins as a currency exchange.  I don't know about ATM specific laws, but the registration as a money services business seems to be what's holding people back.  It doesn't cost anything upfront but requires a TON of compliance procedures.   I'm still wading through it all, as my company is registered as an MSB.

http://fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.html

A couple snippets:

"An exchanger is a person engaged as a business in the exchange of virtual currency for real currency, funds, or other virtual currency."

"An administrator or exchanger that accepts and transmits a convertible virtual currency or buys or sells convertible virtual currency for any reason is a money transmitter under FinCEN's regulations, unless a limitation to or exemption from the definition applies to the person."


All the relvent sentence fragments combined:
A person engaged as a business in the exchange of virtual currency for real currency that buys or sells convertible virtual currency for any reason is a money transmitter under FinCEN's regulations

Can you please help me on this: Is it seen in the US as an ATM only if it gives you BTC in return to USD AND vice-versa

or

even if it only gives one BTC from USD? Isn't it seen, in this latter case, as a "vending machine"? It probably depends on the "status" of bitcoins, whether they're seen as a currency or not. That's my opinion but I would appreciate some motivated opinions! Thanks

It is not "disallowed" in the US. However, the operator of the ATM would need to be a licensed money transmitter and would need to follow AML rules.

What makes you think they are "disallowed" somewhere?

Bitcoin ATMs still sound convenient.  I predict some government will allow them somewhere, no?

There's also an ATM based on Open-Transactions, you can check it out here:

http://openwallet.org/

It has an "App Store" and will support multiple different software products.

Some comments from the developer:

Skaag:  my ATM has no regulation obstacles here
Skaag:  you see, unlike a website, I know exactly where my kiosks are
Skaag:  so I can make sure it is not sold physically in states where it is not yet licensed to operate
Skaag:  My thoughts right now, is to just setup shop and start selling them
Skaag:  even before I have all the software products I want to sell
Skaag:  I can already mass produce them and ship them out
Skaag:  there's nothing really stopping me from doing that, if customers order
Skaag:  but my real dream is putting them in Africa
Skaag:  and that, by the way, is the reason I chose a fanless design, without disk drives, fans, or any other parts that are sensitive to heat.
Skaag:  I have this mechanism where I store nothing of importance on the kiosks
Skaag:  when the kiosk boots, it downloads a verification binary
Skaag:  that binary verifies the hardware was not tampered with
Skaag:  it collects data and sends back a hash
Skaag:  but the actual environment gets brought from a GIT repo over an SSL connection, on top of a VPN, on every boot
Skaag:  it has a GSM modem built-in
Skaag:  so you just stick a SIM card in it, and you're ready to go
Skaag:  it also has a wifi adapter, so if the location already has wifi, they can skip the GSM

A small update on the topic:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/16/bitcoin-atm-funds-first-run/

Quote:

Bitcoin startup Lamassu Bitcoin Ventures, the makers of a Bitcoin ATM which promises to eat your paper (fiat) money and spit Bitcoins into your digital wallet in return, have funded their initial production run of 15 units a few hours after kicking off pre-orders (via their website) — taking the bulk of payments in Bitcoin, fittingly.

Presumably that means they’ve booked $60,000-$75,000 in sales revenue for the initial production run — based on the $4,000-$5,000 per machine price-tag they talked about at the Bitcoin London conference last month. Lamassu is not, however, confirming how much revenue they’ve generated at this point.

What’s the point of a Bitcoin ATM? The aim is to lower the barrier of entry to the digital cryptocurrency — which still very much ‘reeks of geeks’ (and investors) at this still early stage in its development – by letting people swap banknotes for Bitcoin in person. Of course there are myriad ways to do fiat-to-Bitcoin currency exchanges online but the Bitcoin ATM doesn’t require the user to sign up to an online exchange service in order to get some Bitcoin. (Albeit, users of the ATM do need to have their own Bitcoin wallet to store their exchanged BTCs).

The Bitcoin ATM accepts paper currency only but there’s no minimum limit (yes, you can exchange $1 to get around 0.009 Bitcoin, at current exchange rates, if you really want). It only accepts cash, so no debit/credit card payments — a deliberate choice by its creators to keep their costs and complexity capped by not having to deal with banks.

They argue it also makes things simpler for purchasers of the ATM itself, being as they don’t have to gain bank approval to get the machine up and running. However they do warn that buyers still need to make sure they comply with any pertinent financial regulations in their own country (Bitcoin regulations can’t even charitably be called ‘a work in progress’ yet, and the Bitcoin policy confusion varies from country to country).

The startup says it has had more than 150 inquires about the machine ahead of production. Some of the countries that have put in pre-orders are Canada, Australia, New Zealand, U.S., Slovakia, Finland and Denmark, according to co-founder Zach Harvey.

While it’s funding the initial run from pre-orders and its own investment, Harvey said Lamassu may look to raise external funding in future. ”Investment is something we’re considering seriously for the next step of mass adoption,” he tells TechCrunch.

Lamassu expects to ship the first 15 units to buyers next month.

No, just a vending machine, and not the first. When you can also put Bitcoins in and get cash out, then it's a ATM.

It all depends if the country where they're installed sees bitcoins as a currency or a commodity..

I thought this was a great idea too, what a great way to get people associate with bitcoin and implement it slowly into everyday and online use. Not to mention quick cash!!