Re: The Bitcoin ATM Has a Dirty Secret: It Needs a Chaperone
The Bitcoin ATM Has a Dirty Secret: It Needs a Chaperone
When Mitchell Demeter and Jackson Warren opened the worlds first bitcoin ATM at a coffee shop in Vancouver, it was an instant success. People actually lined up to use the machine, which processed about $1 million in digital currency transactions over its first month.
But one day in November, a few weeks after launching the ATM, Demeter noticed something peculiar as he perused the machines transaction data at his office, across town from the coffee shop. At one point, the machine had voided 15 transactions in a row, for no obvious reason. So he drove down to the cafe, and as he walked through the front door, he immediately saw the problem.
A man was sitting next to the machine, at one of the cafes wooden tables, and he was holding a sign that read: Dont Pay Transaction Fees. This very human entrepreneur, you see, was undercutting the worlds first bitcoin ATM. As people walked in to use the machine which was charging a 7 percent transaction fee he offered to exchange their money, by hand, at a lower rate.
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/01/bitcoin_atm/
When Mitchell Demeter and Jackson Warren opened the worlds first bitcoin ATM at a coffee shop in Vancouver, it was an instant success. People actually lined up to use the machine, which processed about $1 million in digital currency transactions over its first month.
But one day in November, a few weeks after launching the ATM, Demeter noticed something peculiar as he perused the machines transaction data at his office, across town from the coffee shop. At one point, the machine had voided 15 transactions in a row, for no obvious reason. So he drove down to the cafe, and as he walked through the front door, he immediately saw the problem.
A man was sitting next to the machine, at one of the cafes wooden tables, and he was holding a sign that read: Dont Pay Transaction Fees. This very human entrepreneur, you see, was undercutting the worlds first bitcoin ATM. As people walked in to use the machine which was charging a 7 percent transaction fee he offered to exchange their money, by hand, at a lower rate.
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/01/bitcoin_atm/
That's quite a cool idea. Set up your localbitcoins operation right next to a bitcoin ATM machine. Cool until the ATM operator hits you over the head with something
