Bitcoin Forum

Can't someone just make a Bitcoin ATM that works like a real bank ATM. That is you register for a wallet and only get one wallet address. You can deposit and withdraw from that wallet, but can't send to any other address unless it is in your wallet. Additional paper wallets could be issued from a deterministic wallet, but would not be transferable to another wallet within that ATM system. If funds were to be moved, they would be treated like cash and no longer the responsibility of the money transmitter. Basically it would be like a smartphone app with local currencies loaded. This seems like it would be fully compliant with how current ATMs work with full accountability.

It's actually already avaible in few cities.

I'm probably not clear enough.  I mean to say that you would need to restrict the ATMs further so you cannot add funds to any other wallet than has been issued by the ATM owners. Robocoins and Lamassu machines allow you to send to any address. This should be restricted so that such funds can only be transferred outside the ATM system. For instance,  you would not be able to send to your smartphone but you could be issued a paper wallet that you could sweep yourself after the funds have adequate confirmations.

What distinction do you think that makes (other than likely the worst marketable ATM in the history of mankind)?

FinCEN says the act of exchanging BTC for USD or the reverse is what makes one a MSB.  Your proposed restricitons would only make the ATM very unpopular.   

BTW "traditional ATMs" comply with money transmitter laws.   You can't get cash out of an ATM in the US without having given someone somewhere all your personal info (name, address, ssn, dob, photo id, etc).  The ATM operator may not have that information but they are working with your card issuer who does.  If the card issuer doesn't follow the rules the ATM network won't accept their cards.

Really it would be more like a Bitcoin savings account. It would be a terrible ATM but we will never likely see any real bitcoin commerce in america with the witch hunt mentality. At least it would give some bitcoin exposure to people on the street.

IF the ATM accepted dollars and converted them to BTC then FinCEN (in their awkward let cram this square peg into the round hole which is the "closest" fit mentality) says its operator is a money transmitter.

So if there are no full service Bitcoin ATMs in the US there will be no "savings account" Bitcoin ATMs in the US either and if you could deploy Bitcoin savings account ATMs it would make a lot more business sense to just deploy much more capable and popular full service ones.

What if the dollars were escrowed into a multisig transaction and never able to be withdrawn as bitcoin? I understand the square peg argument and that is why america (uncapped intentional) is toxic to small business and innovation. It would be cool to allow people to invest in bitcoins even if they never saw them but only gained from their growth.

If I am understanding your last post correctly they would only add or remove dollars and the dollar balance would be based on the BTC exchange rate.  So if the exchange rate today is $1,000, they deposit $1,000 and have a 1 BTC balance.  Later it rises to $2,000 per BTC so they could withdraw up to $2,000 USD?

It is an interesting idea although my reading of FinCEN overly broad and vague "guidance" on virtual currencies is that would still be considered a MSB.  A startup looking to do that should obtain qualified legal advice though as it could also run afoul of various banking and securities statutes as well.  Ironically it might actually be more regulated than a "normal" Bitcoin ATM.

I think by creating a Bitcoin savings account only, people can use an ATM to invest in Bitcoins without being able to spend them.


1. Customer uses a smartphone to setup an account and password based on cryptography with a special app that also sends a copy of account information to email and 2FA verification.

2. Customer puts local currency into ATM

3. Customer uses app to set up a multisig transaction (optional) with a nLockTime set for 1 year like a Certificate of Deposit.

4. Customer receives an encrypted signature key electronically and a hardcopy as a receipt.

5. Customer may withdraw whatever that Bitcoin amount is worth minus a small fee by inserting the hardcopy (or a oopy) or use the app.

Note: The customer may wish for the price of Bitcoin to be higher than when secured.


Obviously the ATM company would not even be in the Bitcoin business except by collecting fees and reinvesting like a bank.

edit:
I think the option of an nLockTime that sends the Bitcoins to the account holder would help ensure that if the ATM business folds, the transactions are not lost. The accounts cannot be transmitted any farther that the ATM business allows. They would probably also require ID to set up an account for AML conformity.

i think i know what you intend. good idea

There's a 2 way Bitcoin ATM that just launched in South Korea.  It may not have all of the OP's requirements, but it deals in both fiat and Bitcoin:

http://www.coindesk.com/south-korea-launches-first-bitcoin-atm/ (http://www.coindesk.com/south-korea-launches-first-bitcoin-atm/)

Definitely looks like and operates like a standard ATM.  Doesn't quite have the "locked" to one owner part down, but looks like a step in the right direction:

http://media.coindesk.com/2014/03/IMG_7162.jpg

they look good. very good.
i am quite impressed :)

I think the Barcelona ATM makes what you are just asking:

There are some videos in their website: http://www.btcpoint.org

And it can buy and sell BTC, other currencies and I think is 3 times cheaper than Robocoin, but not sure.

i think the OP is talking about having a operator that requests your life history and issues you a bitcoin card, that has a private key on it. that cards public key is registered to the customers life history. then the customer can use that card to just slide into the machine and cash out. without having to repeatedly input their life history.

i can see this happening by the operator having a card with 98% of the private key on the chip. the other 2% is what the customer keeps in their head as their pin number. and the operator only saves the public key and pin on their database.

so when a customer puts in the card, it reads the 98% from the chip, gets the 2% from the user typing it in. and makes a fully working private key. the machine then (independent of operators server) creates the raw transaction to withdraw x bitcoin and sends the signed transaction to the network. along with an API to the operators server that says public key sent Xbtc for $Y in return.
the operator checks the public balance and checks the user has not gone over any AML fiat limits, then sends back a command to release the fiat.

the machine dispenses the $$ and the operator logs that public key user swapped x for y, to keep it logs correct for regulatory purposes.

well thats my brain fart anyways

I think is already their i saw it on the forum a guy introducing btc atm  but those were placed in china.I've also heard that there is one in Canada too but never get to know where exactly it is !!

It seems like one of the features of Bitcoin would be to rid yourself of the need for something like an ATM.  I don't know that I can see any benefits of tethering a new technology to one that is more or less archaic. 

That Chinese ATM looks amazing. im guessing its better than the Robocoin ATM.

Bitcoin ATM is one of the most stupid idea I even came to know. Why are you concerned with something almost useless?

I have met many people buying person to person through localbitcoins. There is a big demand for exchanging cash for coins. The vast majority of people don't know how to install a download or set up an encrypted, backed up wallet. But they know what cash is, and want bitcoin for it. This market is very big.

some people do not have/want bank accounts
some people do not want to search listings on a localbitcoin website and arrange a meet up to get cash in hand
some people want to just walk upto a box in their neighbourhood unplanned and swap their bitcoin for banknotes any time they please, to then spend in a pub/bar.

until bitcoin is mainstream and used in all major categories of merchants in all towns. some people will still need to use bank notes

Sure, I agree with you. There must a demand and the current Bitcoin ATMs certainly does the job. But the idea of an ATM for Bitcoin is just... Well... What is the point to withdraw fiat money from a BTC exchange machine if any ordinary ATM already does that?

Now, to buy BTC looks interesting, but it is still not completely secure and affordable. The process to obtain BTC from the machine rely in many point of failures. Moreover, why go to a machine to obtain BTC if a person can do whatever they want with fiat money? Again, no point to have all the hassle to find the machine, hope there is liquidity, them pay expensive fees and finally wait few minutes to have funds in BTC. If the goal is to buy something, all that can be avoided with a Paypal account or a credit card.

A Bitcoin ATM is a machine trying to solve a problem which has already being solved.

I was just thinking of a way someone could invest in bitcoin without actually owning any. Capital gains and losses from withdrawals would be reported on a yearly statement, just like a bank, but there wouldn't be a way to transmit the transaction outside the jurisdiction of the ATMs license.

Like DeathandTaxes said though, it would probably be treated like a security and highly regulated.

The only people which do not have bank accounts is the people which:

- Have money, but they could care less about use a bank account to hold their money.
- Do not have money, so no reason to have a bank account.

So, whatever they have money or not, they could care less to have BTC because:

- If they do not trust in bank accounts, why would they trust in computer software?
- If they do not have money, then they will certainly not have BTC.

There is not anyone begging to have bank accounts because they want to use ATMs. Have you ever heard about people protesting to have bank accounts? People protesting to use ATMs?


Yeah, sure, but there is no point to do that when traditional ATM already does.

The current "ATMs" that work more like exchanges or two-way vending machines are better in my opinion. Why would you want to pay for a service where you let a major target that's always connected to the internet hold on to your bitcoins instead of you?

Actually nobody would hold your bitcoins. They would be locked in escrow. I had thought this would be a way to get around money laundering provisions as the customer would only be able to deposit and withdraw cash, but still benefit from Bitcoin market performance. It's not an exchange because the ATM operator would not hold the bitcoins either, only a part of a multisig key set. This is just a new concept that hasn't been explored. Someone like Coinbase would have the liquidity to operate this through market fluctuations.

I'm the first to admit this isn't a useful idea except from a regulatory perspective as there is almost no risk of using the bitcoins for transmitting money.

A useful idea for this is if the nLockTime feature was used, it could be an simple, easy to use self-serve trust fund.

OK, look like you are in lack of ideas. Let me give you one similar to an ATM machine.

Every airport should have a machine to people exchange their coins (the real ones, fiat money coins) for something like BTC. That could be very useful for people which do not want to carry coins from a currency to a place where that currency is not accepted. I know traditional money exchangers do not accept coins, so those people only have that expensive groceries machine to spend the coins. But sometimes people is already full of groceries when they reach the machines, so they do not want to buy more groceries. So there could be a machine which would buy their coins and sell something like BTC.

That's a great idea, but you would still need the 20 million USD MSB and KYC AML compliance to handle only a small amount of loose change. A savings account doesn't need any more than a local SEC license.

I guess you don't like the idea that Bitcoin savings can be more profitable than saving your money in a bank.

If the saving account was guaranteed by a contract, yes. However that is not what happens with BTC. Anyone holding BTC do not have any guarantee to receive interest over the amount hold. BTC holders rely on a forever optimistic market to increase their capital.

Think about my idea. Perhaps a company could create their own electronic cash (Airportcoins?) and use as unit of account to keep track of the deposited loose change. Them they could use that electronic cash to speculate in the exchange markets. That would be possible because there would be always people depositing loose change here and there around the world. People would only redeem the amount deposited after some time, providing the company with funds enough to leverage in the exchange markets. That could generate a margin of profit to allow the company pay back the same amount deposited by a customer.

That's a good idea. But now you are not even talking about Bitcoin. This would literally be a penny stock machine?