Topic: We neet bitcoin ATMs - page 3. (Read 4535 times)

A town or a city in which there are high density of bitcoin users.

Perhaps the right approach is to find a small economy--perhaps a country with fewer regulations and a high ratio of bitcoin supporters--in which to experiment.  Taking on the USG sounds too ambitious (edit: at first), you're right about that.

We need bitcoin cash dealers on the ground.

The trouble is anything like this is just bound to be shut down or is playing with fire.
Everything is either destined to be small time peer-to-peer for a while.  Then when there actually is demand, someone is going to just have to jump through all of the regulatory hoops it takes to be a currency exchanger and go that way.  And of course have fees to make up for all this cost.

It doesn't make sense to play by all the big time regulations on such a small market (even with $3.5/BTC), but maybe some day it will.  Until then, P2P is gonna have to be the best system.

ATMs and local manned stores may come, but it's going to be a ways out IMO.  But that doesn't mean we don't prove it can work and grow it until we get shut down, and in the process grow the economy.  Then it will be easier to justify jumping through all the hoops.

Replying to my own post because I just thought of one obvious idea to add...

Why not issue our own debit cards, with one swipe providing the bitcoin address?  Then users would know exactly what to do at the "bitcoin ATM" because they've been doing just that since forever.

When the banking industry began to make electronic fund transfers possible (credit, debit) they needed a bridge solution that brought the paper-cash economy to the electronic-cash economy.  ATMs seem to have been one of the most effective solutions: you have a bank account with numbers representing imagined value in it, but you can still withdraw "real" cash at any one of thousands of locations.

Given that PayPal just shut CoinPal down, I assume we know this is going to happen to others as well. What is our bridge solution?

BitCoinMe.com does cash-for-bitcoin (and vice versa) at your doorstep.  The great thing about cash is it has no middle man that can get in the way of an exchange.  If we scaled this up to have in-person exchangers in every city, this would provide a partial solution to the problem.  But with the pros come some cons:

1. Cash delivery in any quantity over $50 (on a regular basis) is something best suited for men with guns and armored vehicles.  We don't want bitcoiners to be jumped, hurt, or killed.
2. Having someone come to your door removes anonymity from the transaction.

What would it take to create a bitcoin ATM?

Suppose a person could visit the ATM, enter a bitcoin address (via USB? via an aliased email address? via some other shortened method?) and then insert cash. The cash is stored in the ATM for collection later, while the bitcoin address is immediately credited at current exchange rates.

On the flip side (withdrawal), suppose ATMs have addresses accessible on the internet (like an email address, e.g. [email protected]). You send bitcoin to the address, and then receive a payment receipt with a 5 digit PIN (this could be on your smart phone, or at home on the computer). Then you turn to (or go visit) the ATM and punch in the PIN. Out comes cash, rounded down to the dollar, at current exchange rates.

Can we do this? Should we?