In this podcast published in March 2020, you will hear Gordon and Faris from CoinCompass answering questions on how bitcoin ATMs actually work.
The concept of this podcast is for people to send their questions related to Bitcoin ATMs for Gordon and Faris to answer. It’s not going to be too much technical or too much economic detail but simply the basics of Bitcoin – those questions you thought were too silly to ask but actually are not.
Continue readingIn this video, you will see the first part (out of two) of the interview with Cory from CoinBros. In this part, he will talk about the CoinBros as a company and explain how Bitcoin ATMs work.
After telling a story on how he started to gain interest in Bitcoin while he was a paramedic and finally started a Bitcoin ATM business in 2017, Cory was asked to explain how is cryptocurrency stored in the machine.
He explains that you can link the ATM directly to the exchange via API or you can use the cold storage wallet. Linking directly to an exchange is less risky because you buy or sell crypto live and that way you cannot become a victim of volatility. On the other hand, by storing the crypto in the wallet you can lose a lot of money if the price keeps going down like in 2018, or you can earn much more in an opposite scenario.
Continue readingIn this episode of the “Nick and Jimmy” show, you will hear Maria and Michael from Instacoin talking about how they got into the Crypto ATM business and how they got to operating more than 100 Bitcoin ATMs all over Canada.
The first Michael was asked was if the cryptocurrency will take over the fiat currency. In his opinion that is the actual goal of cryptocurrency, adding that it is currently gaining more and more popularity even though it is fairly young (only 10 years). He thinks that crypto presents a great alternative to a fiat currency because it’s much faster to buy stuff online or if you want to do remittances it’s a lot cheaper. The most important thing is that it is not centralized, which means that there is no middleman who’s taking astronomic fees.
Continue readingIn the following video from TabConf held in January 2018, Brandon Mintz, the president of Bitcoin Depot, talks about the value of bitcoin ATMs during Bitcoin’s mainstream adoption.
Bitcoin Depot is an operator that works with Genesis Coin, and at the moment of this conference, they had 104 machines installed. As he says, there was a rise in demand for a more physical feel when having cryptocurrency transactions that are more similar to cash ATMs and provides people with a trust factor.
Bitcoin ATM industry grew over 2017 year with accelerating speed. Back in 2014 we did a forecast of how many installations of machines there will be in several years. You can find the table at the end of the post on comparison of traditional bank ATM growth vs. bitcoin ATM growth. The forecast was done based on bank ATM installations back in 1970-s. After 7 years we assumed there will be 2900 ATMs installed worldwide. Today (~4.5 years since first bitcoin ATM installation) there are already more than 3000 ATMs installed worldwide. And the speed if installations is only accelerating over previous years:
In this article we look at one of the most important problems bitcoin ATM operators have — finding bank relationships and opening a bank account.
At the end of the post there is a company mentioned that provides services as intermediary and connects bitcoin ATM operators directly with bitcoin friendly banks also providing additional services on the way.
Disclaimer: We are not affiliated with this company, please do your own due diligence before entering in relations. The material is posted and contacts are provided because in our opinion it brings a value for many operators who potentially need banking relationships, but struggle to find it. Continue reading
The following video from Chicago meetup in beginning of 2017. Gil Valentine, one of the founders of Athena Bitcoin, gives a presentation about their experience of running bitcoin ATM business.
At the moment of presentation (March 2017) Athena Bitcoin runs machines in 7 different states and 12 metro areas.
With a lot of interest in the industry many entrepreneurs want or plan to start a bitcoin ATM business. We at CoinATMRadar get many support requests for information how to do it, what are the steps etc. Here is a good overview of what are important aspects of operating bitcoin machines.
One of the main topics to research is regulation and what is needed to be done to properly register such a business. This is very important to do in right way from the beginning if you plan to do it professionally long-term and with potential to grow your bitcoin ATM network in the future.
Disclaimer: Information provided in this article is a general overview of current regulation found in public sources. It should not be taken as a legal advice. It is recommended to contact local lawyer in the area where you plan to operate machines. You can find several contacts at the end of this post.
With a trend of growing number of bitcoin machine installations worldwide many business owners start to consider hosting a bitcoin ATM at their premises. This post is supposed to help take a decision about how to house a bitcoin machine.
Generally there are several ways of doing it:
The first option is rather a tedious task. Running a bitcoin ATM is a separate business by itself. In order to run a machine one should do all preliminary research work, e.g. finding out what is the legal status of such a business in the area and which licenses are required, then generally obtaining all permissions to do it within legal framework, which is usually time requiring and costly process. Apart from initial investments in legal advice services and obtaining permission, and then investment in machine hardware itself, business owner also will need to organize and maintain running of a bitcoin ATM on ongoing basis. This means to provide liquidity for bitcoin machine operations, and also organize the exchange process and provide all connected services, e.g. customer support.
In this post we look at how operators can organize supply of bitcoin ATMs with liquidity. For simplicity purpose only buy bitcoin transactions (sell bitcoins to customers) are considered.
When running a bitcoin machine every operator needs to provide it with liquidity. Usually this is done via using own capital (fiat and BTC) in order to fund hot wallet (from where bitcoins are sent to customers) or additionally holding some liquidity on bitcoin exchange (fiat currency liquidity), which is converted to BTC when transaction happens to lock exchange rate and later to replenish hot wallet for future transactions. You can read more details about it in Running bitcoin ATM from own hot wallet or Operating bitcoin ATM via exchange.