Topic: Standalone ATM owned by private companies should trade bitcoin (Read 1116 times)

I think plenty of regulations currently stand in the way in the UK..... if there wasn't, there would be bitcoin ATM machines in London today.

that's true... there are differences obviously because the bitcoin atm was been designed specifically for bitcoin, not only that, most normal atm's are over 5-10 years old....

Although, i still  think without modification to the hardware it would definitely be possible to write the software to buy and sell bitcoins.  I'm not saying this would be a small undertaking but the possibility is there.

Here in the UK there is so many bitcoin businesses operating with no issues I don't see why any regulations would stand in the way....  Especially if they were to just act as a middle man between the customer and a large exchange, charging a % fee on top.

Normal ATMs are very different from bitcoin ATMs. Also, getting bitcoin ATMs installed in specific countries is more about regulation than anything else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmR0yvBTbTc

After watching this non bitcoin related video about someone who reprogrammed a standalone ATM to spew out money, it got me thinking...  

These standalone ATM's are normally privately owned, making their money by charging an extra fee for your cash withdrawal.   There are single companies that own hundreds of these machines across the UK and probably across Europe, US etc.  Wouldn't it be possible for them to simply reprogram the firmware in the machine to buy and sell bitcoin for commission as well as dispensing cash?

The newer atm's especially, with high quality printers and camera built in for qr codes, internet connection, touchscreens, cash dispenser, they have all the technology required to both buy and sell bitcoin.

Basically with a firmware update that can be installed remotely there could be hundreds of bitcoin atm's across the world overnight.

For someone to buy/withdraw bitcoin it would be exactly the same risk for the company as would cash withdrawal regarding chargebacks and fraud etc (if that's even a problem when using an atm, i don't think it is).. They would just accept your bank card as payment, and instead of dispensing cash, simply dispense equivalent in bitcoin.  You could also send bitcoin to the machine and it would dispense cash.

I know there are new bitcoin atm machines already, but if this idea was possible it would rapidly increase the amount of bitcoin atm machines overnight.. and possibly a lot of money to be made for these atm machine companies...