This is a seventh review of our bitcoin ATM use series.
The following review is provided to us by Daniel C. from Santa Clara, CA. Bitcoin machine that was reviewed is located at Valley Fair Mall in Santa Clara.
Category Archives: Tutorial
How to find a bitcoin ATM
The following tutorial shows how to find a bitcoin ATM near you. It was done for the old site design, but functionally not much has been changed since redesign and bitcoin ATM map still can be found on the main page.
After watching this video you will know:
- How to find a bitcoin ATM in your city
- How to check current price and fees of the machines
- How to find limits of operations
- How to find the best offer in your area
To make the process even easier, we’ve added a separate page for searching a bitcoin ATM nearby your location.
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To find a nearest bitcoin ATM to you visit our map.
To get the latest data on bitcoin machines follow us on twitter @CoinATMRadar.
How to use a printed paper wallet from a bitcoin ATM receipt
If you read this post you probably have already purchased bitcoins from a bitcoin ATM and instead of using your own previously created wallet address you let the machine generate one for you. If you are still planning to buy bitcoins from a bitcoin ATM you might want to use our bitcoin ATM map to find a location or check our tutorial on how to buy bitcoins from bitcoin ATM.
Not all bitcoin machines support generating and printing of address on receipts, many don’t even support printing receipts at all. So here is a list of known bitcoin ATM types, which can generate and print a paper wallet for you:
All Genesis Coin ATMs (Genesi1, Satoshi1, Satoshi2) can do this:
Also General Bytes two-way BATMThree model (one way BATMTwo doesn’t support it), BitAccess machines and BitXatm bitcoin ATM can generate and print receipt with bitcoin wallet address:
How To Buy Bitcoins At ATM Directly To Hardware Wallet
Send Bitcoins from an ATM Directly to a Hardware Wallet
Bitcoin ATMs make buying bitcoins easy and fast. Bitcoins purchased from Bitcoin ATMs are delivered to the recipient in one of several ways:
- a private key printed on receipt paper;
- encrypted with user given password a private key is sent by email;
- to a Bitcoin address provided by user and scanned at the machine before payment.
What if, however, you want to deliver your bitcoins directly to a bitcoin hardware wallet? Hardware wallets don’t have screens and require software to interact with the device. So how can you send bitcoins from an ATM directly to your hardware wallet?
Mobile HD Watch-only Wallets
Using a mobile wallet like Mycelium or Sentinel, you can import your hardware wallet HD seed onto your mobile device. This allows you to view your hardware wallet addresses and accept payments to your hardware wallet from your phone. There will be no need to even carry or bring the hardware wallet with you to the ATM. Continue reading
How to start a bitcoin ATM business
According to our bitcoin ATM industry stats, there is a growing number of bitcoin ATM installations worldwide. If someone wants to run his own bitcoin ATM or install a bitcoin machine at existing local business, what are the main points to check and decisions to make beforehand? The following article tries to answer these questions.
Regulation
With all developments in Bitcoin area over last couple of years one thing became more prominent — regulation. Bitcoin ATM business is not an exception. In many jurisdictions you need to get special licenses like MSB or others in order to conduct such a business. Running a bitcoin ATM without complying with law might end up bad. So the main point to start investigating in case you would like to run a bitcoin ATM — is the legal framework for such activities in your region. Continue reading
Check and report bitcoin ATM status
We’ve launched a new functionality on our website of tracking bitcoin ATM locations – reports of any bitcoin ATM’s state as working or non-working. There were many complaints when someone did a long journey to bitcoin ATM just to find out that machine is not working or is simply not there anymore.
We update the site regularly as soon as we find or receive information about any changes, but sometimes this is not enough.
New functionality allows anyone to report any bitcoin ATM as active (working) or as non-working / removed by simply upvoting or downvoting a particular bitcoin machine and leaving a short feedback for reference.
Since launch the functionality have already been used by several users, e.g. somebody reported bitcoin ATM in Bucharest, Romania as working:
How to sell bitcoins using Bitcoin ATM
In our previous article we described how you can buy bitcoins using Bitcoin ATM, in this post we describe the process of selling bitcoins via ATM.
What you need to know is that not all machines support two-way operations, many still only allow to buy bitcoins, however according to our Bitcoin ATM Charts about 40% of all installed Bitcoin ATMs actually support sell operations. In order to find your nearest bitcoin machine where you can sell bitcoins – you can visit our bitcoin ATM map. Use “Crypto->Fiat” ticked in the bottom filter to show all locations where you can sell bitcoins (you need to have “Fiat->Crypto” unchecked in order to hide locations where you can only buy bitcoins).
Here is a list of Bitcoin machine types that normally support sell operations (some operators may disable sell operations, so you need to check before planning your trip):
- Robocoin
- Genesis Coin (only Genesis1 and Satoshi2 machines, Satoshi1 ATM is one-way only)
- BitAccess
- General Bytes (only BATMThree model, BATMTwo is one-way machine)
Some other manufacturers also support sell operations in their machines, however the mentioned above represent the majority of installed units on the market.
How to buy bitcoins at a bitcoin ATM
You may be also interested in the instructions how to sell bitcoins using ATM.
In order to buy bitcoins using a bitcoin ATM you need to find the closest to you location and understand what kind of machine it is. Asking yourself where is closest bitcoin ATM near me? To find all locations – visit our bitcoin machines map. At the moment there are about 30 different types of bitcoin ATMs with about 20 manufacturers having their units actually installed somewhere. It may be difficult for an average user to understand how to buy bitcoins by using a bitcoin ATM and what are the differences among various ATMs.
In this article we describe a bitcoin purchase process for 6 different mostly installed bitcoin ATMs in the world (they cover about 90% of the market altogether) and two more types, which were popular before and now are rarely used (Skyhook and Robocoin):
- Genesis1 machine from Genesis Coin
- Satoshi1 or Satoshi2 machine from Genesis Coin
- Lamassu
- General Bytes BATMTwo (one-way)
- General Bytes BATMThree (two-way)
- BitAccess
- Skyhook
- Robocoin
General
There is a general buy process at all bitcoin ATMs:
- Verification step (optional and may vary substantially depending on machine’s type)
- Provide bitcoin address for deposit (optionally can be generated and printed/emailed at some ATMs on the fly, but better to have your own with you before using a machine)
- Insert cash into the ATM
- Confirm operation (bitcoins sent to your bitcoin address at this moment)
This process may vary from ATM to ATM, and this is what we describe for every of the mentioned above bitcoin ATM types. It is important to understand that even when machine’s software/hardware support compliance procedures, they are not necessarily activated, as it depends on the operator choice of every particular machine. That is why the same type of machine might have different verifications and limits set up.