Hello Xenland,
You have asked thoughtful questions so I’ll do my best to answer them, my response is in blue.
Sorry it took so long to reply… it’s the holidays.
May I publish your questions and my response on the thread/
Todd
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Bitcoin ATM (as a company, software and hardware) had the potential to be many things. This was part of the problem when writing the business plan. So many ideas were proposed by everyone involved that I was called “a control freak” for trying to lock down the scope for the Alpha and Beta versions.
Alpha: Sale bitcoins for fiat.
Beta: Sale and buy bitcoins (dispense fiat)
What Bitcoin ATM starts out as and what it could become are very different.
It was never the plan to own hundreds or thousands of machines.
The first 10 machines were to be located in the flagship stores of PlayNTrade across the US. The first machine was just three weeks away from deployment at a San Diego PlayNTrade when an equity dispute with the Chairman of PlayNTrade brought progress to a halt and scared away investors.
The next 10 machines deployed around the world were to become regional sales centers that could be wholly owned, licensed or franchised. The latter options provide for faster growth and profitability because other people are bringing their own money (or investors), their connections and passion. This was the expertise that PlayNTrade and Franchise Beacon were supposed to bring to the table. I had no problem finding bitcoin enthusiasts who owned storefronts or had access to high traffic locations and were willing to act as beta testers for free. Most of whom I met at the Bitcoin World Conference in New York last year.
One idea to mitigate deployment cost was to have the machine double as an information kiosk at no cost to any business that had decent foot traffic. It also crossed my mind that every machine could also do mining with Butterfly Labs new ASIC’s
Short term goals:
#1 Be first with a machine (kiosk) that accepts cash (fiat) and sells bitcoins. This has no regulatory requirements (similar to the businesses that only buy gold). Then leverage this to attract media and investor attention.
#2 Take advantage of the demand for relatively small purchases of bitcoins to charge a higher than average transaction fee.
#3 Within 6 months begin two way transactions which require more record keeping.
#4 Within one year purchase or preferably trade licensing with at leas one interbank network allowing our machines to provide full ATM services.
Few people know this, but the “ATM” in Bitcoin ATM actually means Automated Transaction Mechanism. Therefore it is not over reaching to market our services to other verticals such as vending machines, gaming industry (slot machines), stored value cards… etc..
Our target market was not really the individual bitcoiners, rather companies like ACFM and/or their franchisees, MoneyPass, STAR, Interlink, PLUS… etc. This is what gets the attention of VC’s and private equity and is a likely exit for founders. What kind of MBA would I be if there wasn’t also a long term exit plan for an IPO on Hong Kong or London’s AIM.
The ultimate goal was to become the first “Interbank Network” specializing in speedy clearing, or exchange of bitcoin related transactions between automated systems. As well as providing insurance or bonds for those transactions.
Its a good idear if done right, but lets say it was done right as far as security
(Security takes many forms, most of which are not technological. The part that took much more time was finding an insurance company that specialized in evaluating and covering the risks associated with this type of business. The first programmer for Bitcoin ATM who’s name is Jim Whyn (aka The Bitcoin Blogger) said “Security is the most important thing”. I said “No, being first is the most important thing”.
This coming from a guy who lost 1000btc in the “MyBitcoin.com” theft.
Don’t get me wrong, security is important, but it does not make money, it is a cost of doing business. Security is one component of risk mitigation both of which must be quantifiable.
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t control it” Edwards Deming
What was very measurable was the bleed rate of cash and the patience of investors because all this was happening not long after MtGox got hacked and bitcoin was crashing to $2.
i guess i would only use this if i was travelling and dont have any BTC on my person i could withdrawl from a banking service but i dont have a bank account for the reason of thats why i use bitcoins for my own security and neglegance.
The demand for automated bitcoin exchangeability should have or follow the same incentives for cash.
So i would write my own script that would send me bitcoins to my persons
you’re the exception, an early adaptor, a techi…
or use the bank service to transfer bitcoins to my persons.
What bank service handles bitcoins?
So i guess the only selling points for this product is for those who dont have a bitcoin enabled device to transfer butcoins on their person
In the last two years I have probably lost more than 50btc by testing mobile clients, damaging or loosing devices so bitcoin is not dummy proof. Bitcoin can and should disintermediate many financial “services” that are a drag on productivity. But just as with any innovation, the adaption curve leaves many opportunities for the nimble. Let me give you a simple example: If you have bitcoins but need to charge your smart card for laundry, who is going to handle that transaction? Even when Near Field Communications is ubiquitous, there will still be a demand for backend applications and frontend hardware services that expedite the transaction and lower the risk.
which means that there is no selling points unless you transfer bitcoins to the atm
the ATM’s do not have a ‘hot’ wallet
and out comes fiat then you have one selling point but dosent sound like a high demand product even in a Bitcoin only world.
Im not trying to attack this product or company i would just like to probe for some practical uses before i can accuratly judge to the project to be serious for my purposes in thenear future.
Did you need any assistance with the Bitcoin ATM project? Perhaps we could work together in making a Bitcoin atm machine not only practical but secure. from a security stand point i see alot of red flags go off,
My finances and my company FAST Scanning are wiped out. That’s why I need to sell. But I would absolutely like to keep working with or for the buyer. Terms are flexible.
* first one is your machine is running windows xp, regardless of what kind of locks you think you are secure with there are over 60,000 unclosed windows xp security exploits and Microsoft has for the past few years now stop supporting windows xp updates so those security exploits will be there for ever.
Yes, I know, it was done to expedite the development of the beta models. With Php the machine is a client via a browser. My goal is to see it slimmed down to just an ultra thin client, a dumb terminal. You might be surprised at the number of clever and independent security features the industry has come up with. A transaction cannot begin or finish unless a real person is standing on the sensor pad. The camera on the machine is live, externally monitored and recorded. There is even a version of LoJack for ATM machines.
* second is activeX, now as far as i know activeX it self dosen't have any security risks just using it; how ever the word activeX makes any developer cringe with the thought of active Exploits in there system... so anyone in the right mind wanting to invest in this product will see that keyword and say "hackable" thats not the first impression you want to give to your investors(especially if such investors know pro developers that can take a look a project for them and tell them if it looks good to invest in or not so even if developers are not your investor target, you have to appeal to them because those are the people that will be the judge of your product "for" the investors)
I believe that most hardware (bill acceptors, printers, coin dispensers, card readers…) used by the ATM industry, gaming, vending etc. are now USB. I’m not sure but I believe what language they use internally or to communicate over USB varies and also depends on the operating system.
* third there is a line i saw that said this "Administrator’s password (control) for the code which was placed on Github as open source." I don't know what that means exactly I'm guessing your intent was to convey that its an open-source project but all i can extract out of from what i know is that you gave the admin password to the world... that sounds absolutely absurd if your trying to sell a secure ATM box but its all i know so thats all i can go by.
That would be absurd. Fortunately ‘Control’ is not the password. It should say the new owner gets control over the GitHub repository and can decide for themselves if they want the code to remain open source.
* fourth there was another thing you mentioned this "Version 1 is an executable but I am not sure what tools were used to create it because the source code has been lost, so it will need to be decompiled." I dont understand why you would even disclose this information, if you lost the source code I'm sorry start over, I will not trust source code that was "de-compiled" the output of a decompiler is known to output flaws that don't accurately reflect exactly the original source code so you look like an you have absolutely no idea what your doing as far as security goes from just that line alone!.
The source code is not really lost. I believe Jim Whyn will work with the new owners if they incentivize him. But the Php client/server is a better approach.*fifth problem is that i couldn't find anything that described what the ATM actually does? For example I have no idea about the following questions based on your post(referring to:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/for-sale-bitcoin-atm-a-california-c-corp-10000000-shares-127328)
Can I deposit my Bitcoins with your ATM machine?
For now, I had no interest in being a Bitcoin Bank mostly because of all the exchange thefts but also because of the regulatory compliance.
If so what services will I able to choose from to tell the machine to send my bitcoins too?
If you had an account on MtGox or TradeHill (now gone) or MyBitcoin (now gone) then your transaction at the machine would be instant. The machine could scan a QR code address but then both parties would have to wait for the transaction to clear. And unfortunately confirmation of bitcoin transactions is getting slower and slower even with a staggering 26 Thash/sec. There is opportunity here also.
If your answer to what services I will be able to choose is "The owner of the machine can hire someone or do it them selves to add any service they want to deposit to"
Then im going to assume based off your post you don't provide any API communication instead you provide the solution of "it's open source add it your self". Which is a huge security risk if any owner can open up a Bitcoin ATM machine whos to say that owner is trust worthy enough to know that it won't take my Bitcoins and how would you verify that? But lets say the owner is trust worthy wut if he hired a horrible developer and there is a bug and peoples Bitcoins get lost or stolen? You need to have some kind of constancy or your product just wont work.
I agree, the scenario you describe would be a terrible business plan. Wouldn’t it be better to do exactly the opposite? What we are selling here is access to a trusted brand, trusted people and their tool set (the back end).I'm here to help you can contact me on Skype at CheaperInBitcoins or email
[email protected]Cheers!
Xenland
