Topic: Just bought Bitcoin from a train ticket machine in Switzerland for a trip abroad - page 3. (Read 2148 times)

it is not about the stuff, but it is mostly about how reddit works. for example if you are a brand new account or an account with low karma most subreddits remove your posts as spam but the mods see it and can recover if you send them a message which i think is not required on r/bitcoin since they do it themselves.

anyways, thanks to OP i now have one more reason for wanting to live in Switzerland

Why stuff like this always gets thrown off reddit's bitcoin section ? I guess we need a bitcoin off-topic subredit for that.

Glad you actually took your time out to snap all those pictures.What were the service charges anyway ? Did you pay extra for using the service ?Honestly,not worth it if you actually paid more than the original price of the ticket.

Last month I saw the news and just refreshed my memories. First day of sale is... today, so you are most likely among the first (if not the first?) who used it.

http://www.sbb.ch/en/station-services/services/further-services/bitcoin.html

Indeed and that's so amazing, it's showing if bitcoin are can be the convenience method for paying anything in this time, such a useful information for me and thanks for this, just waiting about the another experience with this cool machine. 

I had to read the instructions to figure out how to get through this process so it's not completely ready for takeoff. The process is stressful with lots of other people around wanting to use the machines etc. but eventually you find a situation where you don't inconvenience anyone else and you can focus.

Once you figure out how to do it it's certainly much easier and faster than changing cash CHF/EUR/USD/etc and about the same cost or even a bit cheaper than a kiosk with a person operating it. I think those exchange kiosks you see in airports are going to disappear soon, replaced by these type of integrations 

Yup adoption all the way, easier, harder, more annoying  but its still move forward.
Thanks for sharing, its good to see real life experiences with bitcoin.

Thanks for sharing your experience, I read about Switzerland adding the option to purchase bitcoin at their stations recently and was wondering how it would all work in practice.  A bit more time consuming it seems than your usual bitcoin ATM but a great step forward.

I posted this in /r/bitcoin, but someone removed it immediately?  

Whatever, I still think the experience is worth sharing.

Flying from Zürich to Amsterdam today, and I'm expecting to be able to use XBT when I arrive. I'm also excited to get in on the SBB's new offer. So I'll get rid of some CHF cash so I don't have to deal with two paper currencies. This isn't a comprehensive review, just some highlights.

The machines at my first two train stations were pretty busy and it was stressful trying to figure out what to do for the first time. I ran out of time at both stations, but I tried again at the airport where there were a lot of machines available and I had a lot more time to mess with it. During my train ride I read on the SBB's website how to get through this process, and that helped a lot.

You have to go through a "Prepaid/top up Bitcoin" option, which wasn't really intuitive for me. Then it asks for your QR code, so I showed it mine, and then you get to this screen!



I had CHF 80 in my pocket, so I chose "other".
You are shown the exchange rate/fee, which I don't really care about at this point, so I just move quickly through:


Next it asks for your phone number. This takes the most time, especially if you're not used to a Swiss number (put a 0 in front of your number, don't include the +4X or whatever)


It sends you a 4 digit code via SMS, you enter it and continue. Then it asks for your cash, you put the bills in here:


Success! It spits out a receipt where the paper tickets usually come out:


I put in CHF 80 and received CHF 72.61 worth of XBT, which I think is about the same as if I changed for EUR. The future is awesome!