Quote from: ANTIcentralized on October 23, 2014, 12:31:30 AM

Coinstar does not charge people 9% for changing USD -> USD, but they rather automate the process of converting large amounts of coins into a "format" that is spendable, as most banks will not accept large amounts of change/coin that is not "wrapped" by denomination.

The fact that a coinstar machine is expensive to produce as this kind of technology is not cheap (to count and sort coins deposited in mass) and needs to be audit-able will make it less likely that there will be a machine that converts change into bitcoin. Any operator would need to cover the costs of the machine plus some margin in converting their fiat into bitcoin

Right - they charge people 9.8% for the service of converting loose change into a more spendable form of fiat. However - you may also choose to convert to an Amazon or ITunes gift card as well as other options for ZERO fee (presumably in this case Amazon/Apple etc are paying CoinStar a somewhat reduced fee based on volume.) So why couldn't Coinbase or Circle or? Huh

do the same thing? Now - you might be talking paying a 15% or so premium by the time you get the btc - something akin to going the Paypal to Virwox to btc route, but we're again talking about small amounts of btc for the loose change sitting in a jar or on your bedroom floor right now.

Anyway - I'm interested to see both the interest and the level of negativity that various users have about this. Glad to at least inspire a bit of conversation at least

marhjan

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