Topic: So, i bought a BTC atm (machine) (Read 427 times)

Wow , where are your contries ?

I actually thought of something similar: Use the ATM & hardware (screen, computer, cash slot etc.), and write new custom software to make it work as a Bitcoin ATM again (but I imagine it would be a relatively ambitious project, depending on how exotic and undocumented the hardware is ).

To make it simpler, you might even just use the 'shell' and replace the hardware inside: Tear out everything, use an RPi for computing, screen with HDMI that plugs right into the Pi, imho then just the cash slot / mechanism remains and will prob. need to be RE'd.

On the other hand, since it seems this model was a pure 'dumb terminal' kind of device, there seems no way in hell to otherwise get it back up again after the servers shut down.

Oh did moderator moved your topic in Romanian Offtopic section or you posted it there on purpose, because it's a lot less visible there?
I see that Gazeta is busy, but you can always try to hire someone to translate this documents, even posting a small job offer here in bitcointalk Marketplace/Services section:
I am still interested in digging more this story and I wonder why any major crypto news website never wrote an article about that.

How about those who sold the machine to you? If you didn't buy from the main company directly I guess you could go where you bought it too see if they have solutions to the problem otherwise they can give you another one. You probably could see if it requires some kind of license to operate and use the internet considering the password that has to be entered probably for access to the internet and to use the machine for business

I started a thread in the Romanian subforum https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/help-me-resolve-a-mystery-5356838, so let's see what they say about it. I also uploaded the document scans I received regarding the death of the alleged thief.
Let's see what comes out of it.

OMG this is so stupid and I guess that is one of the reasons why this machines had one of the cheapest prices compared to other competition.

I think that bitcointalk staff member and admin Cyrus is Romanian or he speaks that language, GazetaBitcoin is Romanian, and Local Romanian forum is also fairly active so you can ask them for translation.

If they say that project was open source than it should be some github page but I doubt that.
Everything connected with Bitcoin (centralized exchanges, some hardware wallets, etc) is trying to imitate that open-source vibe but they are usually totally centralized and closed source.
Anyway, thank you for telling your story, I really miss genuine people like you in this forum.

Well, OK. Here's a short version:

Me and some friends were running a small neighborhood cafe. It was a side gig for me (I'm primarily a c++ dev, working remote). The cafe was right across the street from my home and I used to spend a lot of time there. Then I got the idea to install a BTM in the cafe. Did some research about various manufacturers, etc... BitX was the cheapest, but I had some red flags w.r.t. the custodial wallet, etc... But, through some contacts, I got in touch with Bitlendingclub, who had a BitX machine in their office just gathering dust, because they had bought it, but none of them had the time to put into operating it, and they were more than happy to get rid of it. So I just drove a few km to their office, loaded it in a van and the next day it was operating in the cafe. So this was the first two-way BTM in Bulgaria. We also started accepting bitcoin payments and we gave 10% discount if you paid in bitcoin (the BitX machine could function as a POS terminal as well). At some point lots of people started coming in just to look at the machine, or just to pay their bill in btc. We started hosting bitcoin meetups every month. It was pretty fun. When someone came around and needed help, they'd just call me (if I wasn't already there) and I'd just come down and help the person to create a wallet, answer questions, etc... Met with a lot of interesting folks that way, and the place kind of became the bitcoin go-to in Bulgaria. I even met with the Lamassu founders, Josh and Harvey. They came to some of the meetups.
Regarding the machine itself, I was pretty disappointed. The customer support was atrocious, at one point even threatening to stop answering my tickets. No double spend protection when selling bitcoin. It would just spew out the cash before even 1 confirmation has passed. The POS terminal was a joke. It printed out a piece of paper with two QR codes, one labeled bill and one tip. So if you wanted to pay and give a tip you would need to make TWO on-chain transactions. Anyway, it kinda did the job, and I was constantly monitoring whats was going on.
Now comes the sad part.
I was always cautious not to hold too much BTC in the wallet. Always around 1-2 btc and just refill when empty. I had a guy call me up that said he wants to buy 5-6 btc in the next few days, and I was going on vacation, so I just topped up the account with another 6-7 btc, just this once(tm). Talk about bad timing. When I came back from vacation the machine was showing a system message that said that the network was under a heavy DDoS attack and that they were working to fix it ASAP. A couple of days passed without the situation improving. Then I came across an article about a theft at BitXatm. So I learned about the theft from a news site, not from BitX! Lots of angry email later they started a "compensation process".  I filled out claims forms, sent them notarized documents of my claims, yada, yada. At one point they just stopped responding to emails.
I did some research and figured out that some of the other BTMs that were robbed belonged to Bitcoin Suisse, so I got in touch with them in order to try to organize a common lawsuit. There was also a Korean operator who was also a victim of the theft. Long story short, we decided not to engage in lawsuits, because it would probably cost more money then we'd lost, and even if we win, they'd just go bankrupt and we'd still get nothing. At the time, I think, my 9 btc lost were worth around $10K.
As there were a lot of people still coming in to trade btc I started doing p2p trades, which turned out to be a lot easier and fun. That's why I never bought another BTM.
As to the guy that died in prison: I occasionally email the CEO (Gabriel Prodanescu), who now claims that he doesn't work for BitX anymore, but still answers to his @bitxatm email.
Last time he wrote me this:

I pushed some more and he sent me scans of death certificate and other documents(in Romanian). I'd love if someone that speaks Romanian could translate them and even verify if that's true or not.

As to the "open source project", I sent multiple emails to get access, and only silence from the other end.

Anyway, here's a fun video from the joint https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1dZDFrHLro

At least the machine looks cool. Even if it isn’t usable you can still enjoy it as an art piece of sorts. Maybe try and turn it into an arcade machine for your house or something. I’ve seen worse things sitting in people’s mancaves. 

That is a story you would need to tell us with more details, and I guess 9 BTC was a much less few years ago but it hurts you more and more as Bitcoin value goes up :/
If that ex-employee who allegedly stole all those Bitcoin got killed later, story gets even more interesting and I also found that BitXatm worked with notorious Canadian exchange Quadriga Fintech Solutions and they used their BTM machines.
Quadriga first used Lamassu ATM machines in 2014 but then in April of 2015 they made a deal with BitXatm, seems like a match made in hell:
https://amycastor.com/2019/02/12/how-the-hell-did-we-get-here-a-timeline-of-quadrigacx-events/

I have problems viewing the page with firefox as well. With chrome/chromium it shows up fine. Anyway, your link works on both, so all's good.

I also posted something about it, but it didn't have all necessary information:

• Quote from: SFR10 on August 24, 2021, 10:49:43 AM
  but found an interesting article about one of their employees: Inside Job Theft Cripples Bitheus’ BitXatm Network
  

---

For some reason, all I see is a blank page ^[screenshot] and most likely that's the case with others as well, but I did manage to find an archive of their blog on another website: "Link"

Don't trust, verify, eh? 
https://web.archive.org/web/20171022113333/http://blog.bitxatm.com/post/150824553721/bitxatm-network-sabotage-update

You can pretty much trace all the info in the blog archive. That's as much as I got as well, and I lost 9 fucking BTC because of those incompetent fucks.

Have you tried to contact Plutobtm and ask them if they have any connection with old company and if you can use their server and software with your Bitcoin atm machine.
in worst case scenario you can keep it as collectible item, it may worth much more in future than now,  or you can make an offer to sell it in bitcointalk marketplace section.
It looks like that original price for this new machine was around €3,900 back in the days.

It's not that I don't trust your words, but do you actually have some proof or some old article showing that story about previous owners and worker that allegedly stole coins and got arrested.
I am not sure how other Bitcoin ATM machines are working, but I know there are several major producers like GenesisCoin, General Bytes, BitAccess, Coinsource, Bitstop, Lamassu and many small ones, plus there are various operators available:
https://coinatmradar.com/manufacturers/

PS
Venezula government recently purchased bunch of Bitcoin ATM's but I am not sure what model exactly.

Different Bitcoin ATM (BTM) manufacturers have different models. BitXatm was centralized and custodial. They ran the backend server for all their BTMs. That's why they got cleaned out by an employee. But I think all of the BTM's in existence are just a frontend to a server, which you run elsewhere. If it gets stolen, only the cash in it is at risk. The wallet is not on the BTM but on the backend. Of course, if you don't realize it's been stolen the thief could just clean you out by inserting bills on one side and taking them out on the other, while you're sending him bitcoin 

Even if it was a bargain, what's your plan? You didn't really buy an ATM for decoration. You're planning to make some money out of it; so, what's your plan? In my country, there are several of Bitcoin ATMs, but they have high commissions and that's why they don't use them. They also sell Ethereum, Litecoin and Dash.

Also, out of curiosity, how do you setup such thing? Does it run a node behind? Do you set your own commission fees? Does it have a hard drive which contains the seed your customers will derive addresses from? What happens if someone steals it from you and compromises that drive?

Yeah, checked that aswell, didnt get any further with their cached website.

Also i didnt recieve any response on email or DM's.

and after reading this comment:


I am pretty sure it is not going to work anymore.

I am going to wait it out a bit, maybe ill get some response from an over enthausiast Bitxatm employee who still has acces to the mailbox. Otherwise i will probably try to reinstall the computer wich is inside with normal windows, so i can make a nice informationpoint, or mediaplayer from it.

The outside of the machine looks to cool to just get rid of it ;-)

Anyway, thanks for the help all of you, really appreciate!

Quoting so the image shows up:

Ah, the good ol'BitXatm. Brings back memories...

I used to operate one. Sorry to rain on your parade, but you can't operate one without their server.
They used a custodial wallet because their business model was to take a cut from every transaction.
The company went out of business when, allegedly, one of their employees took off with the wallets of most of their machines.
100+ BTC I think it was. Mine included.
Also, allegedly, the police caught the employee and there was a simulated compensation process, but nothing came out of it.
Also, allegedly, said employee died in prison.
Even if you could get them somehow to make it work, I wouldn't trust them with a single satoshi.

Some links for the curious:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180703213757/http://blog.bitxatm.com/

Have you tried using a different LAN cable ^{[it might be just a faulty one]}?

It looks like both BitXatm and PlutoBTM use the exact same "model & software" and since they're still around ^{[website - locations]}, you might want to try contacting them as well:

• BitXatm
• PlutoBTM

I don't know about that, but found an interesting article about one of their employees: Inside Job Theft Cripples Bitheus’ BitXatm Network

It was probably using some server for communication and that server is now down along with their website and everything else.
I checked wayback machine for their website and it looks like they are not operational for years.

However it looks like they are still active on twitter and they have posted email contact there in 2021:
https://twitter.com/bitxatm/status/1414054951693668354

One more interesting thing I found is that other Canadian company called PlutoBTM is making and selling almost identical looking devices and they are still alive and operational:
https://youtu.be/FoCjqYRd6mU
https://plutobtm.com/