Bitcoin Forum

I posted this in /r/bitcoin, but someone removed it immediately?  ???

Whatever, I still think the experience is worth sharing.

Flying from Zürich to Amsterdam today, and I'm expecting to be able to use XBT when I arrive. I'm also excited to get in on the SBB's new offer. So I'll get rid of some CHF cash so I don't have to deal with two paper currencies. This isn't a comprehensive review, just some highlights.

The machines at my first two train stations were pretty busy and it was stressful trying to figure out what to do for the first time. I ran out of time at both stations, but I tried again at the airport where there were a lot of machines available and I had a lot more time to mess with it. During my train ride I read on the SBB's website how to get through this process, and that helped a lot.

You have to go through a "Prepaid/top up Bitcoin" option, which wasn't really intuitive for me. Then it asks for your QR code, so I showed it mine, and then you get to this screen!
https://anonimag.es/i/b1b09ef9d8d8ce8f12975bc671e1e598.jpg


I had CHF 80 in my pocket, so I chose "other".
You are shown the exchange rate/fee, which I don't really care about at this point, so I just move quickly through:
https://anonimag.es/i/17cdf1ca3af4b730463b5f9b63a03965.jpg

Next it asks for your phone number. This takes the most time, especially if you're not used to a Swiss number (put a 0 in front of your number, don't include the +4X or whatever)
https://anonimag.es/i/5069e97f4abf645ba4b42b70fc7cc366.jpg

It sends you a 4 digit code via SMS, you enter it and continue. Then it asks for your cash, you put the bills in here:
https://anonimag.es/i/d455258be431dcd5ae76d6cf21d868db.jpg

Success! It spits out a receipt where the paper tickets usually come out:
https://anonimag.es/i/7eb8e0b1cbefaa7b7203fb08ba2fac58.jpg

I put in CHF 80 and received CHF 72.61 worth of XBT, which I think is about the same as if I changed for EUR. The future is awesome!  ;D

Thanks for sharing your experience, I read about Switzerland adding the option to purchase bitcoin at their stations recently and was wondering how it would all work in practice.  A bit more time consuming it seems than your usual bitcoin ATM but a great step forward.

Yup adoption all the way, easier, harder, more annoying  but its still move forward.
Thanks for sharing, its good to see real life experiences with bitcoin.

I had to read the instructions to figure out how to get through this process so it's not completely ready for takeoff. The process is stressful with lots of other people around wanting to use the machines etc. but eventually you find a situation where you don't inconvenience anyone else and you can focus.

Once you figure out how to do it it's certainly much easier and faster than changing cash CHF/EUR/USD/etc and about the same cost or even a bit cheaper than a kiosk with a person operating it. I think those exchange kiosks you see in airports are going to disappear soon, replaced by these type of integrations 8)

Indeed and that's so amazing, it's showing if bitcoin are can be the convenience method for paying anything in this time, such a useful information for me and thanks for this, just waiting about the another experience with this cool machine.  ;)

Last month I saw the news and just refreshed my memories. First day of sale is... today, so you are most likely among the first (if not the first?) who used it. :)

http://www.sbb.ch/en/station-services/services/further-services/bitcoin.html

Why stuff like this always gets thrown off reddit's bitcoin section ? I guess we need a bitcoin off-topic subredit for that.

Glad you actually took your time out to snap all those pictures.What were the service charges anyway ? Did you pay extra for using the service ?Honestly,not worth it if you actually paid more than the original price of the ticket.

it is not about the stuff, but it is mostly about how reddit works. for example if you are a brand new account or an account with low karma most subreddits remove your posts as spam but the mods see it and can recover if you send them a message which i think is not required on r/bitcoin since they do it themselves.

anyways, thanks to OP i now have one more reason for wanting to live in Switzerland :)

Interesting thread, I was just looking for feedback on this new system... Looks like it is really great, but fees seem to be a little stiff. I wonder how easy was it to implement this. This is most likely a very nice cost saving versus Bitcoin ATM's.

Do you specifically need a Swiss mobile phone number for this or any foreign phone number with the roaming feature enabled would work as well? I guess the Swiss authorities made it so only people who sourced a Swiss sim card from somewhere could work with these Bitcoin machines for identification purposes if something goes wrong, right? And thank you for showing us an in-depth review of how these new machines function  ;)

Thank you for sharing your experience and documenting the process!

I have a few questions regarding the machine:

Do you need to have a Swiss mobile number or can you use any mobile number? (Would be great for international travelers.)

If a Swiss SIM is required, how can a foreigner obtain an activated one at low cost?

Does the machine accept Swiss Franc coins as well? (Would be outstanding to get rid of chump change when leaving Switzerland, as coins can't be exchanged at banks.)

ya.ya.yo!

Very cool, thanks for sharing. Since the invention of money those damn Swiss always have to be on top of everything financial.  :)

Hope, SBB can share us some sales. It would be interesting to see some charts of the next months. This would be a huge indicator for the Bitcoin-World.

Greetz
Steve

Looks like a swiss mobile phone number is required: http://www.sbb.ch/en/station-services/services/further-services/bitcoin.html

I've been seeing more and more bitcoin atm around the world and this is really a great feeling.
 So far here are the list of atm bitcoin that i saw being posted in this forum
Probably USA and UK
-jakarta Indonesia
-makati philippines
-china

Wow that is a very purposeful implementation of Bitcoin. Seems like it was a great experience using BTC in the real world. Thanks for sharing!

Very cool that you were able to do this. I hope more European countries follow suit and put these things in railway stations.
In my country, Belgium, I feel we're still a bit behind on the physical Bitcoin applications.

I think there were some crazy guys that bought just after midnight, I'm a little more relaxed though and can take care of it after I have my morning coffee  ;D

I didn't have a problem with the pricing, I think it's a fair deal all things considered and I'll keep using the system to get rid of small/old bank notes. I paid about 4CHF to get 75CHF worth of XBT, so I find it's about the same to change into other major currencies (EUR/USD). It's really valuable when you start to deal with less known currencies like Forint, there the exchange rates get really bad.

You can't buy tickets with this system, you can only give the machine cash notes and it sends Bitcoin to the wallet that you show using your mobile wallet (Mycellium/Breadwallet/etc.).

Yes you do need a swiss number, it sends you a confirmation code via SMS.

The machines do accept coins and I'm going to try using them next time. I agree with you, I hate having coins laying around and this would be the perfect way to get rid of them and turn them into something productive and portable.

The AML/KYC rules are pretty good in Switzerland, but they are still there. So I think that's how they remain in compliance, they make sure you have a Swiss number and track the XBT purchases you make. There are stand-alone BTMs throughout Switzerland that you can do business with if you're not living in CH and just passing through. They offer better rates as well.

https://www.bitcoinsuisse.ch/en/bitcoin-atm-network/

That looks interesting and very useful for the bitcoin users. It is a big step forward in the growth of digital currency network. Soon this advancement spreads throughout the world countries when much adoption happens.

That is inspiring and good step into great direction when some government are taking serious BTCitcoin is truly innovation and revolutionary digital currency, this kind of acceptation will get more attention and soon more government will know the importance of this.

You read these things in the news, but you seldom see people reporting back on their personal experience with these new services accepting

Bitcoin. Thank you for sharing this with us. Just a quick question... As a newbie to this, how long did it take you from beginning to end, to do

this? Would you say, the whole process is user-friendly enough for people new to Bitcoin to grasp? ...or should I say, Adoption friendly?

Small step but still important in our journey towards mainstream adoption. Thanks for sharing OP.

Really interesting read, thanks for sharing your experience!

That can be a start for bitcoin ATM, so you can buy/sell bitcoin wherever you are and whenever you want. I agree what you did was risky but you have an experience that a few people can do.

It's an interesting implementation for sure, and it seems like it happened pretty quickly considering how recently we heard about the news for this kind of stuff happening in Switzerland. I wonder how common this will become throughout the rest of the country, especially considering a lot of the news is accurate and quickly being added.

That's very neat and very cool.  Definitely a big thanks for posting pictures.   I'm not big on bitcoin atms, but this is an occasion where they make sense.  If I could find one like this I'd at least give it a shot. 

Switzerland always was more enlightened about money.

Nice service they offer, this is realy a way how to implement Bitcoin in everyday life and activities. It's very convenient that you get Bitcoins on that way and I also think that it's better then Bitcoin ATM itself.
Thank you for sharing all this useful and interesting information with us.

well thanks a lot for sharing your experiance i live in india and i have never ever seen any bitcoin based machine .well i saw an btc atm pic once but never seen it live and thought i can not understand the language in your recipt but its good to see it atleast it has the word btc in it  :P

This is a great idea.
Especially for people in Europe who may have to exchange one currency for another frequently,
Bitcoin is the perfect way to do this.
Since most people don't need the funds instantly, the transaction time should be acceptable.

4.82CHF fee is just totally fucking insane.  That is real money - spent for nothing.  Changing into and out of bitcoin is wildly expensive and prevents any real consumer adoption.

It seems like it takes quite a while to actually get your bitcoins. I guess the phone number is to deal with all regulations but wow, seems like overkill. If you have people waiting in line behind you I bet it would be slow goings!

The FFS or SBB offer a commission of about 6%.

I do think this is a massive step towards "adoption". Now there is a very easy answer for anyone in Switzerland that asks "where can I buy Bitcoin? How do I buy it?". The answer used to be really sketchy, "go to this website, create an account, meet a guy in a bank lobby...wire money to some random person in another country along with all your identity info and hope for the best..." etc. Now it's "Download a wallet app and grab some cash, then walk outside your door and tap a few times on the ticket machine's screen."

These ticket machines are really a part of everyday life here, so it's very accessible now to everyone in the country. The population is very "fiscally conservative" and aware/apprehensive about the issues surrounding fiat currencies so it seems like a good fit.

The real problem of course lies with fiat currencies, which ultimately is what drives interest in Bitcoin as a store of value in Switzerland. If you're a saver it's not a big deal. My XBT savings have increased in value 100% over two years, so paying a 6% fee once really isn't a big problem.

It's great that Switzerland allows to purchase BTC already. I also heard that you can pay for your municipals using Bitcoin. I wonder why Switzerland is so progressive when USA, Iceland and other countries aren't, although they are strong in things not related to btc.

When this topic was first posted about atm use at the trains I was thinking you could us it on the train fares as well.
Nice to get feedback from some one that actually used the system and see the way it is setup.
Totally get stress of using it,often feel that way when I am using a new atm and it feels like everyone is watching.
Think my first attempt ended up me just walking out after a poor attempt to buy some bitcoin and returning 30 minutes later.

Love how payment processors are picking up on BTC in recent years... This makes a great stop for me when I enter European Union.

Although the rate is unstable, it seems like vacation will take the pain away.

We will ask if possible to share information but, I can tell you the first day was quite good :)

Thank you

Thanks for sharing your impressions!

I am surprised at how quickly the Swiss railway has implemented this. The announcement is only a few weeks ago. This is an impressively proof how very effective the Swiss are.
Luckily, I am often in Switzerland and will definitely try the service next time.

Thank you very much for sharing such great news and explaining everything in detail.
I hope to see many other train ticket machine in the near future soon, in other countries.
It's great news for the skeptic people to.
I heard many complaints that Bitcoin have just virtual value but no value in the real world.
Such reports can help to change minds of such people and inspire them to join us.

Thanks for sharing this with screenshots quite information, fee also seem just around 5% which is not that big. Will love to exchange my cash to bitcoin in this way but sadly i have to pay like more than 10% here for local guy as demand is very high and price is well above market rate for cash payment.

thank you for sharing your experience, can buy bitcoin with credit card (CHF Credit card of course) or only physical check?

This is amazing for Swiss and further bitcoin implementing, also I was amazed to find a website that buys/sells bitcoins in our local currency and it's pretty fast tho. We're a few years away from a wide spread usage of bitcoin.

I hope in our country, the Philippines, they would be able to apply that here but I think it will be a long way to go since we just had our upgrades to our trains (Upgrade in the ticketing system) it is where you buy a reloadable RFID card so it will be faster and waiting in line is not so much of a problem unless you have no load already. Well, hoping they could receive bitcoins as payment.

this is niece. i will test next week. i hope it is available on other stations too.
but you can't buy a ticket with btc?
and why do you need a phone number?