Bitcoin Forum

More than 1200 newsagent across the country will offer service to buy Bitcoin and Ethereum for the Australian crypto enthusiasts’ people.
Read More here: Australians Can Buy Bitcoin & Ethereum at Newsagents (https://coinpedia.org/news/australians-can-buy-bitcoin-ethereum-newsagents/)

Not bad :). Despite fees, it's simple and convenient way to obtain your first BTC or ETH. We know that buying cryptocurrencies on exchanges may be not that easy proccess. When you register on exchange and provide them documents, it can took week or more to verify your account. So, these newsagents can be a great alternative for crypto beginners.

A 5% fee seems very steep but for your average guy on the street who has little knowledge of bitcoin but decides they want to invest it's definitely a good and viable option. It's also the sort of thing that can attract a more aging population and is seemingly entirely geared to holders.

I wonder what the wallet then offers in terms of transferring your funds etc, there's probably a very high fee on that also.

This is very good news for the development of bitcoin. Thus, even more people will learn about bitcoin and will be able to buy it, even with such a commission. I hope this example will be followed by other developed countries.

I always have mixed feelings about the mass adoption of bitcoin. It's a really good thing from one side, that a lot of people can get involved in the cryptocurrency ecosystem but on the other hand it's a risk for them (and for bitcoin) too. I don't know  what will happen if people without enough education about bitcoin will buy their first bitcoins. There should be something where people can find information about bitcoin easily and in an understandable form. Also, if bitcoin will become the part of the common talk, it will help a lot to avoid unnecessary losses and to help the newbies to deal with their investment.

Bitcoin ATMs are quite popular in my country. A few people designed a small leaflet which contained the most important information about Bitcoin e.g. being decentralized, limited supply, being able to store it on your own and explanation what cryptocurrency is. I have seen a couple of them next to the ATMs I mentioned before.

5% isn't a lot, I have seen machines which were selling Bitcoin for a 3% fee but there weren't many in my country. However, their number is slowly growing. Has anyone who lives in Australia tested this service?

It is good for bitcoin and ethereum but bad for them because those fees are so high, they can just buy little amount of coins to try them not for investments. Taking it mainstream is happening slowly.

I don't understand why. I agree that as an advertising move it is good. All the people who want to near the Newsstand will know that there is bitcoin. But it's not practical. You have to give 5% and then pay the transaction. It may be better to send Fiat to the exchange and then buy any coin?

This is very good and interesting turnaround as Australian banks have been trying to ban bitcoin trade and they have been locking bank accounts. No matter how much the banksters try, they cannot stop the revolution.

Man oh man, that much percentage of fees are just too big! Damn, I cannot imagine seeing someone agreeing to these terms. Plus the fact that they will clearly be exposing themselves to be crypto holders, I do not think it is a great idea. If worse gets worse, they you will be easy to find and be rid off of your possessions. But hey, don't get me wrong, I think this is pretty good for popularity and adoption purposes, what I am just saying is that I for sure will not be wiling to use their services.

Your feelings are understandable, if adoption comes too soon then so many people will make mistakes and lose money and that could change the overall perception of bitcoin. Adoption ideally needs to increase a steady and manageable rate and people need to enter because they hear about how good the technology is instead of because they want to make money.

Designing such leaflets and having free classes and such are the things that are going to need to happen. If you think about the adoption of the Internet, the bitcoin community is going to have to learn from those examples.

I find 5% to be quite a lot but I guess for such a service it's somewhat reasonable, most exchanges are charging even around 2%. I think overall the fees involved are much too high. It would be nice to one day see a decentralized peer to peer exchange for bitcoin to fiat.

I think it's fine for someone new who is just buying some to try it out. As said by others Bitocin ATMs are also a good alternative to exchanges for a new person, but IMO it's worth the wait to buy just from the exchanges than paying these fees if you are planning to buy a substantial amount.

You have to keep in mind that using Bitcoin ATM and buying Bitcoin with cash is much more anonymous than using your credit card or buying it using a wire transfer to the exchange. I guess that decentralized cryptocurrencies exchanges have to become more popular before we will see decentralized crypto <-> fiat trading. Let's hope that the vast majority of people who will join crypto community in the future, will do proper research.

Yep, although if anonymity is your goal then bitcoin probably isn't the best cryptocurrency for you.

Decentralized exchanges are starting to grow but they're still a long long way away. I guess that the difficulty with a decentralized crypto-fiat trading platform is that there's no real solution to have the fiat decentralized, I imagine someone will solve that issue eventually and we'll see it introduced. Imagine trading btc/usd without fees other than gas or marginal exchange fees.

I give it a couple of months before it dies. The people who provide these back ends will not risk their banking relationships for this. They make tons out of selling electricity, gas and phone credit through newsagents.

It's been attempted in the UK a few years ago. That lasted a few weeks in total.

https://www.coindesk.com/zipzap-resumes-cash-bitcoin-services-uk-shoppers/

In my opinion, Australia is one of the most progressive countries with respect to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. The Power Ledger project received support at the state level. The WePower project also moved to Australia, although it began its development in a completely different country. In fact, it's very cool, sorry that Australia is so far .....

Do they risk their current banking relations if they only sell bitcoin? It measn they only receive money from people and that's all what banks can see, incoming money on the bank account. If they don't buy bitcoin from every stranger (don't exchange the coins directly to money) they can be fine, but this is just my opinion. Although I know that somehow they need to buy that bitcoin sometime if they want to sell it at the newsagents, so this two things can't get separated at the end...

Great news for the aussies! It doesn't matter that the fees will be higher because bitcoin will always rise in the long term, and it's kind of like coinbase which charges a higher fee due to it's simplicity. This new way of trading could be bad for coinbase though, i'd rather buy at the newsagents if i could