Topic: Vietnamese Exchange BitcoinVN Is Seeking Investors For 12 New Bitcoin ATMs (Read 2285 times)

Another one 

https://bitcoinvn.io/news/were-back-at-indika/



We might at some point also consider opening up taking some additional capital to scale up operations.

Maybe. 

If so, we will look to also post an update here.

So far, so good.

No robbery attempts yet - and the new machines are extra thiccc & solid.

Even if a raving Vodka-filled lunatic attempting to smash it - the BTM is likely to win 

Next machine hitting the streets - first placement inside Saigon. 


--> https://twitter.com/BitcoinATMHCMC/status/1803689117395357941

I'm sure there will be some unicum who will want to rob a bitcoin ATM. It's a good thing that bitcoin wallets are electronic and it will be much harder to rob them, especially if transactions are conducted using either Tor browser or VPN, for this purpose NordVPN is the best, it uses a pool of IP addresses, which are blocked in very few places.

Persistence. 

The first machine with fully inhoused software has been placed in Binh Duong since last week.




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A more close-up picture of our District 7 machine.

...with attached sticker by our colleagues from BitcoinVN Shop which serve as official supplier for hardware signing devices such as Trezor, Ledger, Coldcard and Blockstream Jade in Vietnam.

...and we're back in District 7 of Ho Chi Minh City 

Dear Bittothefuture,

Thank you for your interest!  

Currently our team is not looking for additional capital - that said, if you are interested to be kept in the loop with other investment opportunities with our team, you can subscribe to our Private Client Newsletter (sign-up form is in the lower half):

https://otc.bitcoinvn.io/

Now and then additional opportunities might arise.  

--

As for our own operations - the location near Tan Son Nhat Airport got a do-over and big, nice and fat orange sign outdoors   :



--> BitcoinVN Department on Twitter - 28.08.2023

are you still looking for investment? Please let me know. I'm on telegram as @CAPrivacy. Looking forward to hearing from you.

More street decorations in Saigon 

Currently we're serving four locations across town - with more to come! 

New look for our Bitcoin ATM near Tan Son Nhat airport in Saigon 

A new look for Vietnam's oldest Bitcoin ATM - still in operation at Italiani's at the center of Saigon.

Full article to our Bitcoin ATM launch at Indika Saigon:


https://news.bitcoinvn.io/bitcoin-atm-at-indika-saigon/

All our Bitcoin ATM's in Vietnam are 2-way.

Bitcoin in --> Vietnamese Dong out
Vietnamese Dong in --> Bitcoin out 

...with Vietnam opening up again our BTM services are finally in expansion again 




---> https://btm.bitcoinvn.io/

While 2021 has been a rough year in Vietnam with month-long lockdowns and several of our venues closing for good - we are still here. 

The new software has been rolled out in its initial stages - and the first two machines are live with it.



This one specifically is located at our District 7 location in Saigon - at RednRound.

https://btm.bitcoinvn.io/locations/saigon/btm5

Pizza & Bitcoin.

Following the divine will of Laszlo 

More machine placements. 





https://news.bitcoinvn.io/new-bitcoin-atm-at-thao-dien-riverside/?lang=en

Despite a turbulent 2020, still moving forward step-by-step 

First location in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City:




https://news.bitcoinvn.io/new-bitcoin-atm-launched-district-7-saigon/?lang=en

All currently operating machines have been upgraded to support native SegWit transactions:


---> https://news.bitcoinvn.io/bitcoin-atm-saigon-upgraded-to-segwit/?lang=en


Especially coming into the next bull run we hope that this will help our customers to avoid getting hit too hard by rising on-chain transaction fees. 

PSA:

Our location at Italiani's Pizza Han Thuyen is closed for the next 3 days due to renovation work at their location (re-opened normally from 01.10.2020!).

If you are looking to purchase/sell Bitcoin for cash in downtown HCMC - feel free to check out our location at Big Pig BBQ & Beer!

https://news.bitcoinvn.io/new-bitcoin-atm-big-pig-bbq-downtown-saigon/?lang=en

Current fleet now also updated on Openstreetmaps  :

https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=bitcoin%20atm%20ho%20chi%20minh#map=19/10.77882/106.69819

Hey!

Sorry for the delayed response, but we are not overly active on Bitcointalk - usually easier to reach us via our common customer support channels (Twitter or Facebook work well too). 

As for your comment & question:

The whole COVID situation certainly also impacted our business (some of our locations in the F&B sector went out of business and we had to find new hosts; also the borders in Vietnam remain locked which means no tourists in the country which are one of our main customer groups), but overall we have been able to hold steady and prepare for time when borders open again & the whole economy starts picking up again more (plus of course... - being ready for the next bull run which in due time).

As for the investment round: This round indeed had been closed, but we might have more opportunities coming up - so feel free to get in touch with us anyway. Within our group we also regularly conduct other investments more or less closely related to Bitcoin/Vietnam, so depending on your aims there might potentially also be other options coming up which might be of interest to you.

This is an interesting project with future potential.  Vietnam and other Eastern countries are a good ground for crypto investments, so I think there's scope for this ATM related project. Can I ask whether you still raising capital and if there's a limit to the investment?

Thanks,
Rex

New interview with Rob Rankin of Big Pig BBQ - our most recent addition to our location line-up:




---> https://news.bitcoinvn.io/interview-rob-rankin-big-pig-bbq-utit-vn/?lang=en

Updated user manual  :


https://btm.bitcoinvn.io/faq/troubleshooting

Overview of the current location line-up:

One door closes, another opens, it would appear!

I do remember discussing with you some time back about the BATM that was installed at Schiphol -- by the time I actually went to check it out, it had been long uninstalled -- in fact, it wasn't even in any directory there, nor did any of the Info desks know about it, but the BBQ location for yours at least should get more eyes on it.

Very cool pic =)

congratulations,
the new location is quite where a BTM should be placed.
cashing out BTC on arrival is now an even more easy task on the way into town...  

Some might have seen it already, but we haven't been lazy during the lockdown and worked to obtain another location right next to Ho-Chi-Minh-City's Tan Son Nhat Airport 





Source: https://news.bitcoinvn.io/first-bitcoin-atm-in-tan-binh-saigon-placed/?lang=en

The lease of our location host (Italianis) was up - and since that specific location lived on about 50% tourists (of which there are none right now and possibly months to come) it has been probably a prudent decision not to go into a bidding war with Mobile World (which will move in there now).

So yeah, COVID certainly caused an impact there - but the Italianis folks are smart & hard-working, so probably the right move to step back from that location and focus on their other location(s) for now 

Hey guys, you know I like catching up with you every now and then, good to see stuff is opening up again, though a bit of a shame with that license expiring. Was that intentional because of COVID-19 or did someone just forget to renew stuff? A lot of closures in my part of the planet too, including some really old brands I grew up with, so it really feels like the end of an era in a literal sense for brands. Hope you pick up on BATM activity once this blows over.

Currently there is no active fundraising round since the whole Corona Situation slowed down the rollout of the last batch we received in late December (plus see above: Some locations closing / relocating which forces us to relocate the machines as well ). The 2019 batch had been fully allocated to investors.

However, as things now open up again you might want to follow us on the channels mentioned above by carlfebz2 since there might be more opportunities in the future

Why you wouldnt just tend to contact them on those mediums written on op?

https://www.facebook.com/BitcoinATMHCMC
https://twitter.com/BitcoinATMHCMC
https://t.me/BitcoinATMVietnamUpdates
https://btm.bitcoinvn.io

Good luck and Dyor even more..

Quite interested in this.


As a ex community member, I would possibly be interested . could you give more info ?

Unfortunately May started off with not-so-good news for our BTM department as we were informed that our oldest & longest-running location partner of Italianis lost their lease for their Ly Tu Trong location after almost 4 years.



Source: https://twitter.com/BitcoinATMHCMC/status/1257081222125154304

Our remaining location are unaffected from this change and we will update as soon as new locations become available. 

Some good news here - the city of HCMC is starting to open up again from today on and with that our locations are gradually coming out of their limited "Corona schedule" back to normal opening hours.



More positive news in the coming days. 

In the meanwhile one of our host locations also got a (favourable) review by the local Bitcoin Community in Saigon (not really about our BTM's, but if you are interested to hear about the state of the F&B industry could be interesting  ):

oh sure, i am just spinning some ideas, some NFC chip solution maybe could work as well.


sure, but you thought about it as well after reading so many news about recycling or even destroying "infected" banknotes or putting them in quarantine i was wondering about other solutions. i am sure this issue would have to be addressed worldwide, and the company with the best solution could maybe be in for a nice reward in the industry.

Well, in the case of "BTM 3.0" - wouldn't an app suffice for that?  

As long as physical cash is around (and it certainly has its use cases), you can't avoid physical machines like the one's we run.

It is a niche service which probably most users in our location won't need since they might have other solutions in place to on-/offramp Crypto.

But if you are unbanked and/or just need some quick cash or generally value your privacy... - there is a whole range of reasons why a BTM can be a valuable service.

And in a 10-12m people city even such a "niche market" is already an interesting one.  

Sanitizing bank notes:

Not yet!

We are at the moment extra careful to only put fresh bank notes straight from the bank into the machines when we refill, but ultimately the end user also has to take its own precautions.

For now remodeling the whole machine to run them through an UV light before spitting them out is beyond our capabilities / cost-prohibitive for us.

But it is certainly an interesting idea and we're happy to adopt it should the BTM manufacturers provide such a service from their side.  

Very interesting to read your experience. Unfortunately, for many businesses in crypto, not just in your sector, people seem to have very skewed expectations. Like most businesses, it's a lot of hard work, patience and well, luck. I've not had very much success in my own ventures, but I recognise that those who do succeed are patient enough to experiment and try, learning as much as possible from different methods.

It's also non-formulaic, different geography, different economic class, demographics are so, so important to me. But I'm really curious if there were any proper attempt to study and assess the performance of all these BATMs globally. Every report out there is simply about growth, and no real insight into usage. Perhaps we'll touch base about this down the road.

Thanks for your time!

i wonder what we could come up with to avoid that the BTM users have to touch the machine at any point?

who knows how long the usage of physical cash would be normal?

maybe soon we will carry only digital fiat on our wallets to go shopping and use it on a BTM 3.0 as well to pay contactless for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin... ?

have you looked into methods of sanitizing bank notes e.g. with special UV lamps?

Thank you.

Yes, many "about-to-be"-BTM-operators severely underestimate the amount of time/effort/nerves; problem solving skills & technical knowledge, business negotiation skills (e.g. working with location partners) and resources for customer service it takes to run these machines.

And that is all before we even talking about marketing/SEO; liquidity management; regulatory requirements and many other areas come in...

Many newcomers think they buy a machine; throw it into a corner and plug it in... - and then it's printing them money consistently every month.

And the companies selling you those machines have of course an incentive to induce such an image into your mind to sell more machines 

The reality is unfortunately not even close to this.

Our team also had a learning curve to take back from 2016 onwards when we installed the first machine here in Ho Chi Minh City; for the first 2-3 years we certainly also did not operate on the level we are operating now and it was more of a sideplay for the owners of our mother company BitcoinVN.

However, earlier last year the decision was made to put more experienced and skilled human resources behind this project and build it out as a proper department within the entire company - and the results of these changes have been very encouraging and resulted ultimately in a much better experience and service level for our customers, a massively reduced downtime and last but not least a multiplication of business revenue.

I've been following a few BTCATM projects over the past two years. The numbers are hard to ignore in terms of proliferation, and I am from Southeast Asia where in my own capital 2 ATMs were installed years ago but sadly, fell into disrepair (that I know of anyway based on the bitcoin atm radar of circa 2016).

Good luck to you. It's going to be bad for most businesses -- crypto not excluded -- but we will all come back bigger than ever!

Update on Locations due to the increased lockdown measures in Ho Chi Minh City since 24/03/2020:


Source: https://twitter.com/BitcoinATMHCMC/status/1242961339942760448

Thank you very much for your continued interest in our project.

The volume has gone down (not dramatically so) a bit since currently Vietnam is in lockdown and all borders closed (so no tourists are coming to use the machine which where a minor, but significant part of our user base); overall we are holding up quite well though.

In Vietnam (almost) everybody is quite aware of the situation and use of facemasks / hand sanitizers is widespread. Our firm also switched since last month to basically fully remote office and any physical interactions which still take place, are conducted with outmost care to avoid getting infected (many Vietnamese people live with and/or close with their parents and elderly family members which make it even more important to not become a spreader).

Cool stuff, just checked back here after a while and pleasantly surprised to see the machines already arriving. I know it arrived late December so what was your volume like before the big C came? Hope the volume was motivational.

Should train people to wipe down the machines too (provide the wipes) or gloves if they want to use, though I would say if Hanoi's in lockdown, you should just follow suit and get non-critical stuff down.

@BTCATMs nice to see you found this thread too.

All our BTM have been supplied with hand sanitizers to increase hygiene in these daring times.

Partially related - our mother company BitcoinVN was this week covered on badcredit.org:

Thank you! 

We will do our best to keep everyone informed and up to date to our best abilities.

It is of course a very fluid situation and things can change by the hour, but so far we can still confirm to be fully operational on all our locations.

thanks for the update, guys... some of my friends would appreciate to know it is still working.
i guess, the C is very much affecting all of the businesses in D1 right now.
keep calm and buy bitcoin!

Good evening! 

While the People Committee of District 1 in HCMC announced the closure of all bars, nightclubs, massage salons etc. in District 1 due to the Coronavirus situation, we would like to assure our customers, that our current two locations in District 1 at Italiani's Ly Tu Trong 290 and Italiani's Han Thuyen 17 are *not* affected by the measures taken by the local authorities.

All our locations are operating normally. 

Thank you. 

We wish you success for your project as well!

Maybe at some point in the future we might even find some ways to cooperate on business matters!

Greetings from Vietnam 

Hi,

Great to see your project launch was a success. It is very inspirational to see your progress!!!  I wish you a lot of luck. We are hoping to achieve something similar here in Spain/Europe and we are very glad to see a project like yours doing well  

Hi,

The current fundraising round is closed for further outside investors.

The machines have been purchased and have arrived in Vietnam: https://twitter.com/BitcoinATMHCMC/status/1209488409779007493



Deployment is ongoing: https://news.bitcoinvn.io/first-bitcoin-atm-in-thao-dien-saigon-placed/?lang=en



And while we very(!) well understand the hesitation towards "Crypto business" out of Vietnam, we would like to mention that our mother entity BitcoinVN is Vietnam's oldest Bitcoin Exchange Service (established in late 2013) and partially operated by German Expats/"Bitcoin OG"'s" with a long history in the space  - see also here for more information: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcoinvn-vietnams-premier-bitcoin-exchange-5215245

Andrew Rowan also wrote a couple of years back a feature about our mother entity: https://medium.com/@MrRowan/a-brief-history-of-bitcoin-in-vietnam-a41a7b26cb83

We might have other opportunities available in the future, so in case you might be interested to participate in any future expansions feel free to also follow us on Twitter or Facebook .

Why not consider on trying to seek out local people first ? You do need 20 person with having at least $5k to invest.
It isnt bad to seek online investors though but the hard thing here is to trust up on a business where the output is
on the other side of the globe/country.Any info's on how much you already raised?

Here is an Interview with Ariel (Nguyen) of Italiani’s, the first Bitcoin ATM location in Vietnam.

Hey OP, nice to see a bit of progress from when you first posted. Glad you moved the thread here too. Which team member are you btw? Or posting on behalf of? Should get Weil or Nguyen in here too really!

Listened to the podcast, you guys should livestream the next VN meetup, seriously.

My thoughts: talking about Weil as a BTC OG and holding down the fort in VN, probably true to some extent but that kind of reference doesn't go down well with a lot of people, if you know what I mean. Southeast Asians are quiet about their participation, but active. Weil isn't holding down the Bitcoin fort with an exchange and BATM business... holding down the corporate side of things maybe!

John Riggins did an interview with Dominik Weil and Bao-Phuong Nguyen to discuss the history and current state of Bitcoin in Vietnam.

You can listen to the whole story in Episode 3 of the Bitcoin in Asia podcast:
http://bitcoininasia.btc.libsynpro.com/bia3-bringing-bitcoin-to-vietnam-with-dominik-weil-and-bao-phuong-paige-nguyen

In this video, Tai Zen chats with German bitcoin entrepreneur Dominik Weil about the unexpected risks & challenges of starting the 1st bitcoin exchange, running Bitcoin ATMs & organizing the Bitcoin Saigon Meetup in an exotic emerging market such as Vietnam, where crypto has very little rules:

Risk Takers #5 – Dominik Weil On Starting The 1st Bitcoin Exchange & Bitcoin Meetup In Vietnam

Thank you for your reasonable questions and suggestions. We will try our best to be as open in our responses as possible, but for competitive and other reasons we may limit our disclosure on this public forum.

We prefer to place the machines in air conditioned indoors locations. This not only reduces tear and wear but also provides enhanced security and privacy for our customers. The sun and heat can have a detrimental affect on the electronics, however this is mitigated by placing the machines under a shade in a well ventilated outdoors environment. We haven't seen any performance deterioration or signs of increased tear and wear in such locations.

Fraud is also an important consideration for us as mentioned earlier. We rely on a number of mitigating factors to minimise this risk, including placing the machines in secure indoors locations, partnering with BTM vendors offering excessively heavy machines produced using thick metal and advanced locks. We have not had any fraud incidents since 2016 with our current machines.

BATMs -- or any machines really -- as you say, often not built for tropical climates like Vietnam (I worked and live in global south so I get this 100%). Humidity and heat drastically lowers performance and even lifespan. It is a high-risk country for fraud (and again I come from Southeast Asia so I know the risks!) -- have you had any incidents with your machines?

The tourist use case is very real also, but I still doubt tourists themselves have picked up enough on using BTC to reliably withdraw cash overseas but let's see this trend!

Thank you for the quick response. Do add this thread to Securities as I suggested, you might find more serious investors there. Edit: as I entered I saw it was already moved =)

Thank you for your comments. To add, as outlined in our previous messages, we have participated in and are open to further discussions with the legislative bodies. Currently we are complying with the legislative framework. Should it change, we are prepared to adapt our business in order to continue operating in line with the law. Our business model does not rely on BTMs being KYC-less.

One of the main, if not the main, use case for cryptocurrencies continues to be trading and international value transfer. This use case has already created a market large enough that it does not need merchants to accept bitcoin. Vietnam is placed #8 globally by the number of cryptocurrency traders and speculators even though paying for goods and services with cryptocurrencies has been illegal locally (trading cryptocurrencies is not prohibited though). Hence merchants accepting bitcoin would be strictly an upside scenario, on which we are not currently relying in our business model.

Regarding the comment on the tourists, it's more about convenience, security, and cost. Although tourists are free to exchange cash for the local currency, in practice it's highly cumbersome, given 1) limited acceptance and high cost of using a foreign credit card in Vietnam (so people prefer to rely on cash), 2) the need to withdraw home currency cash from the bank account, which often requires a visit to the branch, 3) need to pre-convert home currency to USD and bring the USD to Vietnam (creating a risk of theft as well of a hassle to declare it if bringing larger sums of money), 4) converting USD to Vietnam Dong at a high cost often (due to lack of transparency in this business dominated by jewellery stores), 5) having to do the inverse process for any left-over USD. Compare that to doing nothing in the home country, then once in Vietnam, just sending BTC from your wallet to BTM's wallet and withdrawing the cash directly.

Thank you for the suggestion and the questions!

We are a private company and for competitive and other reasons we are not disclosing our financials publicly.

We believe we have actually managed to secure a very competitive price on the machines for the security and features they provide. Vietnam does not boast record low crime rates hence we take security seriously. Unfortunately many BTM manufacturers offer lightweight and compact machines which are not optimal for the environment we are operating in.

Our customers tend to have different reasons for why they've chosen to use our BTMs. For many people it's the convenience - a BTM offers the quickest way to convert between cryptocurrencies and cash, which is important in the cash-based Vietnamese economy. Many others trust our brand, customer service, and the reputation we've established in Vietnam, a country notorious for con artists in the cryptocurrency space, more than any other player in the market. From our inception in 2013, we have taken the more difficult road, where we prioritised reputation over uncountable short-term gain opportunities, which is one of our key sustainable competitive advantages as a company.

That's probably true, though if the government doesn't require it now there's no reason why the bitcoin ATM operator should ask for that information.  Don't do it until it's required, that's my take on it.

This is a great idea, and if I had a spare $5000 laying around I'd probably invest in the project.  I have kind of become a fan of bitcoin ATMs after discovering that there was one in my town (who knew!), even though it was malfunctioning when I tried to use it.  They offer an excellent way of buying bitcoin, even if the fees are generally high. 

The only issue I see with this succeeding in Vietnam is the problem of merchants accepting bitcoin.  Tourists were mentioned in the infographic, but bitcoin won't do them much good if they can't spend it, right?  And is it hard to convert foreign currency to whatever the local Vienamese one is?  I don't remember the name of it, my bad.  Tourists generally don't have a problem converting their money when they arrive in the country I would imagine.  But all that aside, good luck with this.

I've read some of your FAQs in your website and I have some concerns regarding on how you will process this in the foreseeable future legally speaking.


KYC process is something that a lot of countries with Bitcoin ATMs require for their users some do it not directly with the ATM itself but from a crypto wallet associated to them, if you don't have it now then expect that you will forcibly have one when the Vietnamese government starts to get more involve with the industry. Having transaction limits is also inevitable since it is a standard procedure for most country to issue limits as a precaution regarding AML procedures, think about the abuse your machines will have if a customer can literally have unlimited transactions with it. Yes it's good that you don't have KYC and transaction limits as of the moment but think about the potential legal issues you will have because of it.

Actually, this might get a lot more traction if you move it to Securities section. It's already got quite a bit more for due diligence than most other projects.

Since you've been around for a while, care to share some information on the money side of things? A simple annual financial statement for the 4 BTMs you have already. I didn't know it cost that much for a machine though! I'm only curious why people would choose a BTM when p2p like Localbitcoins is not restricted. BTMs are popular in US precisely because p2p isn't legal, but why Vietnam?

It's right in our previous reply you quoted  - Mid September this year in Hanoi; so almost 2 months ago.

May I know when was that last workshop meeting?

That was direct information from the last workshop meeting with the responsible MoJ people in charge of the matter (took place in Hanoi in mid-September of this year and was attended by leading Vietnamese Crypto firms such as BitcoinVN, VCC Exchange etc.).

This information might not have been widely published though.

Thanks for the reply.

Where can I see the information about the postponement of the crypto draft regulation until 2020? I've been trying to look for an article  but I can't find one.

Dear Bttzed03,

That is a good & valid question!  

Currently Bitcoin ("Digital Assets") in Vietnam remain unregulated; the Ministry of Justice has been tasked since early 2018 with drafting&coordinating a regulatory draft proposal.
The initial date for the release was announced for summer 2019 - however, due to lack of urgency and the need for further industry consultations the draft release has been delayed until 2020.

The leadership of BitcoinVN has been regularly attending the industry workshops organized by the MoJ over the past two years and feels confident, that Vietnam will not chose the "China way" as a regulatory approach.

As for the payment methods: State Bank of Vietnam classified Bitcoin similar to Forex (like USD, EUR), Gold etc. and prohibited them to be used as payment method. There remain a few questions about this matter (e.g. it is possible to use USD-based credit cards - so possibly having merchant processor converting "Digital Assets" into VND might be a workaround; but grey area remains for now) regardless which will need further specification in the future.

While we can't fully exclude any future legal risks due to changes in regulations, it is currently not restricted to buy/sell/hodl Bitcoin in Vietnam. Limitations of it being used as "payment method" don't affect the main use case of these machines (to buy/sell Bitcoin); it might limit the use of the machines to pay for certain services (e.g. enable to use the bill payment functionalities via Bitcoin)

That said - since these machines are multi-purpose (they can be used as traditional bill payment kiosks) even a complete required shutdown of the Bitcoin functionalities of these machines would not make them "useless" (it would have an impact on the profitability/revenue, but the machines would still be able to generate $ with the other non-crypto functionalities).

I hope this answers your question sufficiently.  

May I ask why you want to push for this when the central bank and the government still do not recognize bitcoin as a legal payment method?

Here is an interview with Vedran Kajic - a long-time crypto veteran and one of the Bitcoin pioneers in Croatia.
Back in 2016 he also became one of the investors who funded the first Bitcoin ATM in Vietnam.

Read the full interview on news.bitcoinvn.io

Announcement on official BTM page: https://btm.bitcoinvn.io/updates

And on official Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BitcoinATMHCMC/

Announcement via Twitter:

https://twitter.com/BitcoinATMHCMC/status/1191248683007799297

reserved for further announcements

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