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Bloomberg News channel broadcasting in Turkey announced today "Worlds second bitcoin ATM in Istanbul Ataturk Airport"
https://twitter.com/BitcoinHaber/status/402889779206840320 (https://twitter.com/BitcoinHaber/status/402889779206840320)

Travelersbox kiosk is a pioneer in its kind to convert leftover money to gift cards, paypal, etc..
And among many other things to bitcoin

This is a revolutionary step in Turkey's bitcoin history

@bitcoinhaber

The airport!??!

Istanbul airport!?!?!?

And in Turkey of all places??????


That's a very interesting move. Airport's operate with long and deep state oversight. Turkish government + whole political/military ruling class has said "yes" to Bitcoin in a big way here, that's truly fascinating. And Turkey's a serious player in world affairs for many a reason. Hmmm.

Travelers Box Turns Leftover Foreign Currency Into Bitcoin at the Airport
http://www.coindesk.com/travelers-box-foreign-currency-bitcoin-airport/ (http://www.coindesk.com/travelers-box-foreign-currency-bitcoin-airport/)

Bitcoin Kiosk of Istanbul
http://bitcoin-turkiye.blogspot.com/2013/11/bitcoin-kiosk-of-istanbul-travelersbox.html (http://bitcoin-turkiye.blogspot.com/2013/11/bitcoin-kiosk-of-istanbul-travelersbox.html)

exchanging leftover currency for btc-  that's a great idea!
I would have surely used it when I was there last summer.
And I'd  be so much the richer now.

Damn! I fly through Ataturk when I go to my apartment in Istanbul. This is awesome, maybe now I can also get lira when I arrive!?

yeah, such a brilliant idea.. i never thought of it.

i went to thailand in 2011.. and i still have about 1500 baht leftover, almost 3 years later.

So lets all fly to Istanbul?
Great news definitely.

Seeing as it's located at the airport, I wonder which fiat currencies it supports? Can't be that many, the machine would have to be pretty large to hold decent quantities for even a few major world currencies (and it would also have to be more secure too as it would be holding more money for the sake of more usage from people on outbound flights going elsewhere).

I guess it won't matter if Bitcoin becomes widely accepted at international transport hubs across the world, you travel with BTC, convert to local what you need, then ditch the local for BTC again when you move on.

i would assume it would be the turkish lira, USD, and the Euro. considering it's in a turkish airport, the lira makes sense.. and the USD/Euro are the two biggest currencies.

Although it doesn't seem to be an ATM.. don't think you can convert BTC to FIAT

the beauty of this one is that it just appeared out of nowhere.  i've not seen one peep of this strategy here or on Reddit.

WAY TO GO!

That is a very good place to put an ATM.

Sweet! They begin to appear!

Great even if its an airport I don't travel through ever. Let's keep seeing more of them! Moscow, London, JFK!

Read it again, Einstein.

Fucks sake.


I'm not questioning the business sense in putting it in an airport, the reason for that couldn't be any more obvious.


What I'm saying is: Turkey

• Military traditionally has a lot of political power
• NATO member
• Big friends with the US (war on terror, Iraq, Syria etc)
• Alleged to be heavily involved in alot of subterfuge at many levels all over Middle East and Central Asia, hence....
• Secret Service/Secret Police
• Gangsters
• Drug kingpins
• Drug transit (heroin out of Afghanistan, cannabis from Pakistan & India)

I could go on, there's more to it than I know, I'm sure.

So in a country with these various competing powerful interests, to get the OK to stick a Bitcoin ATM in their MAIN AIRPORT is going to need some high level of co-operation, anyone representing the above interests who dislike this idea will have a decent hand to play if they want to let it be known that they want that thing to disappear and not come back.

Get it?

In fact, Turkey really is a nexus of all sorts of different aspects of the world coming together, this is where the EU meets the Middle East, where Islam meets Christianity, where NATO meets the Middle East and Central Asia...

Turkey getting on board, and in a way that's as significant as putting a BTC bureau de change in Istanbul airport, it's a very important measure of the impact Bitcoin is having.

I think you are overthinking this.
Most probably the company has a license for a machine with which you can fund your digital accounts on paypal etc.

They just added bitcoin as an option and probably noone cared enough to check what bitcoin is.
Officials saw a logo next to paypal,ebay and amazon and thought of it as another payment processor or something...

It's not even a bitcoin atm after all.

Well, we'll see how it pans out. The truth has a habit of becoming known in the end. All those powerful lobbies do exist in Turkey though, and it is a major center of converegnce for differing aspects of the world, that much is definitely true.

I bet we see more and more of this as bitcoin moves outside our English speaking community and into the world. Turkey is an super cool place. They are not quite Europe, not quite the middle east. If you have not been there I highly recommend it. Flights can be very reasonable. I've seen Chicago to Istanbul direct for $539! and inside Turkey you can catch flights for like $25.

Travelersbox told in an interview http://bitcoin-turkiye.blogspot.com/2013/11/bitcoin-kiosk-of-istanbul-travelersbox.html (http://bitcoin-turkiye.blogspot.com/2013/11/bitcoin-kiosk-of-istanbul-travelersbox.html) that kiosks were located both landside and airside. You can find units at the land side next to the check in area, next to HSBC business lounge, gate 214, gate 216 and around the gates.

That's fantastic news...

Glad to see Turkey showing leadership on bitcoin...

Wow. Taken altogether, that's a ringing endorsement. Expect retailer uptake to come about because of this. Someone powerful really wants the dollar/fiat system dead, I don't think there's any mistaking that. Or the Turkish political powers want to do that themselves, but that seems less likely... I guess we will maybe someday find an answer to that.

We need these things in every major international airport. If you could get local fiat out it would be even better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8lpjYtsoW4&feature=youtu.be

One day we might be able to travel just about anywhere using bitcoin, hopefully.

English subtitles are available.

The company doing this were covered on Coindesk, and they're apparently pushing to get the 5 more ATM's into other international airports before the end of the year. Based in Gibraltar (another eyebrow raiser IMO).

Sign of acceptance about what? Paypal,ebay and amazon? I 'm pretty sure those companies are acceptable in Turkey.

Next thing I want to hear is a company putting in 50 Bitcoin ATM machines in international airports around the world!

i know of at least one more in Canada except the 1st one in Vancouver.

Wait till someone puts one in Manchester airport UK and see how long it takes for the cops to close the M56 and all other major roads leading to it lol.

good thought carlton.

To add one thing: Down here in germany turkish immigrants are the majority of immigrants. I hope they'll use bitcoin for remittance. When this starts, it'll be veeeery big

CoinDesk -- UPDATE (25th November 2013 16:25 GMT): Travelers Box is now no longer converting foreign currency into bitcoin. CEO Tomer Zussman sent CoinDesk the following statement:

“We never expected this kind of exposure at this early stage. The kiosks are working very well with all other products but we didn’t expect what happened with Bitcoin in few days. The volume and demand  were very high and we had to reevaluate the process and the technical challenges.

We are working very hard in order to bring Bitcoin back to the kiosks and we will announce it as soon as possible.”

http://www.coindesk.com/travelers-box-foreign-currency-bitcoin-airport/ (http://www.coindesk.com/travelers-box-foreign-currency-bitcoin-airport/)

Wtf? They run out of coins or something? That looked kind of amateurish anyway.