2013-02-23 cnet.com - Need Bitcoins? This ATM takes dollars and funds your accou

[Stephen Gornick]

New Hampshire entrepreneurs have created a dollar-converting anonymous Bitcoin ATM, which they hope to sell to bars, restaurants, and other retail locations nationwide.

Zach Harvey has an ambitious plan to accelerate adoption of the Internet's favorite alternative currency: installing in thousands of bars, restaurants, and grocery stores ATMs that will let you buy Bitcoins anonymously.

It's the opposite of a traditional automated teller that dispenses currency. Instead, these Bitcoin ATMs will accept dollar bills -- using the same validation mechanism as vending machines -- and instantly convert the amount to Bitcoins and deposit the result in your account.
[...]
"If we made these machines somewhere around $1,000 to $1,500 each, depending on the commission, they could be able to buy this and make it back within a reasonable period of time," Harvey says.
[...]
To obtain Bitcoins, people use an iPhone app like Blockchain or Android's BitcoinSpinner to show the ATM a QR code with their desired address for payments. After they insert a dollar bill (denominations up to $100 are accepted), the ATM automatically credits their Bitcoin account with the proceeds. There's a 1 percent transaction fee.

"Even people who have been in the Bitcoin world for a while and have used every type of exchange are blown away by the simplicity of this machine," Harvey says. "I'm just putting in a dollar. Before they really know what's going on, their phone tells them, 'You have Bitcoin.'"

 - http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57570925-38/need-bitcoins-this-atm-takes-dollars-and-funds-your-account/

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[lassdas]

Now THAT is awesome.
I hope they can sell a couple of thousands of those machines, that would be even more awesome. 

[21after2]

In freaking New Hampshire? Damn it, my area never gets anything cool... 

[dust]

Does anyone have a video of the ATM?

[nimda]

In freaking New Hampshire? Damn it, my area never gets anything cool... 

I want to move to NH. Seems like they have the most Bitcoin traction, and NH will probably be the first state to reach critical mass.

[Walter Rothbard]

Wow.

[Piper67]

Does anyone have a video of the ATM?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE5CEX4vRck

[Mike Christ]

Does anyone have a video of the ATM?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE5CEX4vRck

An unusually high influx of non-believers on that vid   But thanks!

[Piper67]

Does anyone have a video of the ATM?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE5CEX4vRck

An unusually high influx of non-believers on that vid   But thanks!

The more I think about this, the more awesome it becomes. Say someone in LA wants to send money to their relatives abroad: you make them a wallet with blockchain, print out the QR code, go to the nearest bar with a Bitcoin ATM and put in 100 dollars.

Really awesome.

[kiba]

In freaking New Hampshire? Damn it, my area never gets anything cool...  

That's where all the libertards live. If you want anything cool that libertards likes, you better move there.

[bbit]

In freaking New Hampshire? Damn it, my area never gets anything cool...  

That's where all the libertards live. If you want anything cool that libertards likes, you better move there.

Tons of Libertards live there.

[knight22]

Wow that's pretty impressive!

[bbit]

Wow that's pretty impressive!

Pretty amazing where everything is going these days!

[dust]

Does anyone have a video of the ATM?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE5CEX4vRck

Thanks.

[Rasko]

That is really cool, I bet its taking loads of money that went into investment!
Hopefully LA can get some! 

[bbit]

That is really cool, I bet its taking loads of money that went into investment!
Hopefully LA can get some! 

I'm ready to set-up a full business in L.A  ;-)

[Dusty]

Fantastic machine, but to be complete it should be able to do also the opposite: convert bitcoins to cash.

[molecular]

In freaking New Hampshire? Damn it, my area never gets anything cool... 

Isn't New Hampshire also considering to make gold and silver legal tender again?

[kiba]

Isn't New Hampshire also considering to make gold and silver legal tender again?

They should make everything legal tender! Although, I don't think the NH likes receiving trucks for tax payments.

[giszmo]

I wonder what the business model is though. As said on other threads, these machines need maintenance and are not vandalism stable. You can't just put it near the toilets and forget about them. Most likely you would put them on the bar with the bar tender pulling cash out every now and then.

Ok, so now there is this machine. I own a bar in NH. Why would I want it? Commission is 1%. Turn over is $1000 per month (as long as I'm the only one in town) and the machine costs $2000 with internet and electricity? That would mean the commissions pay for it in 200 months? Which bar would do that now? Ok, in New York it would have a turn over of maybe $10k paying for itself if 2 years but which bar would believe that? Sure the makers of the BATM dream of selling thousands but I guess they are ahead of time with this. Either they pay bars to be allowed to put the machine there and earn the commissions or the bars are not ready for that yet.

[deeplink]

I wonder what the business model is though. As said on other threads, these machines need maintenance and are not vandalism stable. You can't just put it near the toilets and forget about them. Most likely you would put them on the bar with the bar tender pulling cash out every now and then.

Ok, so now there is this machine. I own a bar in NH. Why would I want it? Commission is 1%. Turn over is $1000 per month (as long as I'm the only one in town) and the machine costs $2000 with internet and electricity? That would mean the commissions pay for it in 200 months? Which bar would do that now? Ok, in New York it would have a turn over of maybe $10k paying for itself if 2 years but which bar would believe that? Sure the makers of the BATM dream of selling thousands but I guess they are ahead of time with this. Either they pay bars to be allowed to put the machine there and earn the commissions or the bars are not ready for that yet.

It depends on the type of customers you want to attract. I know for a fact that personally I would choose a bar/restaurant or any store in fact that allows me to pay with Bitcoin over one that doesn't. But I admit, I don't care about the 1% commission.

Also don't forget this is still a prototype. If it takes off this could be a huge boost for Bitcoin.

[giszmo]

I wonder what the business model is though. As said on other threads, these machines need maintenance and are not vandalism stable. You can't just put it near the toilets and forget about them. Most likely you would put them on the bar with the bar tender pulling cash out every now and then.

Ok, so now there is this machine. I own a bar in NH. Why would I want it? Commission is 1%. Turn over is $1000 per month (as long as I'm the only one in town) and the machine costs $2000 with internet and electricity? That would mean the commissions pay for it in 200 months? Which bar would do that now? Ok, in New York it would have a turn over of maybe $10k paying for itself if 2 years but which bar would believe that? Sure the makers of the BATM dream of selling thousands but I guess they are ahead of time with this. Either they pay bars to be allowed to put the machine there and earn the commissions or the bars are not ready for that yet.

It depends on the type of customers you want to attract. I know for a fact that personally I would choose a bar/restaurant or any store in fact that allows me to pay with Bitcoin over one that doesn't. But I admit, I don't care about the 1% commission.

Also don't forget this is still a prototype. If it takes off this could be a huge boost for Bitcoin.

In what way would a bar that sells bitcoin take bitcoin for their beer?
If the machine was the other way round, I would understand your point. You could walk in with bitcoins only and get a beer even if the shop owner had no clue of bitcoin. It would facilitate the conversion of shops to "accept" bitcoin and the commission would make sense as the customer would pay 1% to the bar on top of the beer they bought.

[Piper67]

I wonder what the business model is though. As said on other threads, these machines need maintenance and are not vandalism stable. You can't just put it near the toilets and forget about them. Most likely you would put them on the bar with the bar tender pulling cash out every now and then.

Ok, so now there is this machine. I own a bar in NH. Why would I want it? Commission is 1%. Turn over is $1000 per month (as long as I'm the only one in town) and the machine costs $2000 with internet and electricity? That would mean the commissions pay for it in 200 months? Which bar would do that now? Ok, in New York it would have a turn over of maybe $10k paying for itself if 2 years but which bar would believe that? Sure the makers of the BATM dream of selling thousands but I guess they are ahead of time with this. Either they pay bars to be allowed to put the machine there and earn the commissions or the bars are not ready for that yet.

Put it in a bar in LA, show people how easy it is to send money to other countries and watch the turnover climb through the roof.

[deeplink]

In what way would a bar that sells bitcoin take bitcoin for their beer?
If the machine was the other way round, I would understand your point. You could walk in with bitcoins only and get a beer even if the shop owner had no clue of bitcoin. It would facilitate the conversion of shops to "accept" bitcoin and the commission would make sense as the customer would pay 1% to the bar on top of the beer they bought.

You're right, I was assuming that a bar that has a USD->Bitcoin ATM would also accept BTC for beer, but that would not necessarily be the case. It would be schizophrenic though to have the ATM and not accept BTC.

[molecular]

This machine looks like if I needed some USD I could just stick the machine into my backpack and go home with it.

[FarmerBlue]

In bars since it doesn't pay out dollars for BTC, that is less dollars in the pocket of the drinker/customer to spend at the bar, so unless the bar accepts BTC, it will be a disincentive to the bar. Now if it were to go in reverse it would be an incentive for the bars to have in that case.

I think bars might be sold on the idea if presented the idea as a security benefit to accept bitcoins and have less dollars/cash on hand to rob, but still hard as the BTC box teller would have cash/dollars in it.

I think a better location would be at a Mall and all stores in mall accept bitcoins, a BTC mall, that would be awesome.

[giszmo]

In what way would a bar that sells bitcoin take bitcoin for their beer?
If the machine was the other way round, I would understand your point. You could walk in with bitcoins only and get a beer even if the shop owner had no clue of bitcoin. It would facilitate the conversion of shops to "accept" bitcoin and the commission would make sense as the customer would pay 1% to the bar on top of the beer they bought.

You're right, I was assuming that a bar that has a USD->Bitcoin ATM would also accept BTC for beer, but that would not necessarily be the case. It would be schizophrenic though to have the ATM and not accept BTC.

Is it really schizophrenic to buy a machine that magically accumulates thousands of dollars every month if I'm allowed to keep 1% in case I send the rest to the guy that sold me this magic box? Even if the bar owner cares about what bitcoins are, does he really need to accept them for his business? In Germany we have machines in bars that sell cigarettes that you are not allowed to use in that bar neither. Same with condoms.

[giszmo]

In bars since it doesn't pay out dollars for BTC, that is less dollars in the pocket of the drinker/customer to spend at the bar, so unless the bar accepts BTC, it will be a disincentive to the bar. Now if it were to go in reverse it would be an incentive for the bars to have in that case.

I think bars might be sold on the idea if presented the idea as a security benefit to accept bitcoins and have less dollars/cash on hand to rob, but still hard as the BTC box teller would have cash/dollars in it.

I think a better location would be at a Mall and all stores in mall accept bitcoins, a BTC mall, that would be awesome.

For the security concern I wonder why the ATMs at supermarkets don't get filled with the bills people spend there. The way it is today, a security company comes heavily armored to fetch the daily income of the supermarket and another security company comes to deliver fresh bills for the ATMs. If the ATMs would accept batches of $$, the bank could pay the supermarket for filling the ATM at least partially and the supermarket could save money by not needing a daily cash fetch.

With bitcoins, if the supermarket cashier functions as an ATM, it could also get rid of its dangerous bills by selling it to the customers. Anyway the BATM has to be bidirectional. The one way thing is a maintenance nightmare.

[FarmerBlue]

Getting dollars out of an BTCATM would be pretty easy was for thieves to steal your bitcoins for easy cash.  If someone stole your phone or you lose your phone and they could access your bitcoin app, they could clean out your bitcoins up to what ever daily limit there may be on the BTCATM.

[molecular]

Getting dollars out of an BTCATM would be pretty easy was for thieves to steal your bitcoins for easy cash.  If someone stole your phone or you lose your phone and they could access your bitcoin app, they could clean out your bitcoins up to what ever daily limit there may be on the BTCATM.

Doesnt make sense: If someone has your phone with bitcoin-app without pin they can clean out your complete balance with no limit and without the use of some bitcoin ATM by just sending the bitcoins to their wallet.

[FarmerBlue]

Getting dollars out of an BTCATM would be pretty easy was for thieves to steal your bitcoins for easy cash.  If someone stole your phone or you lose your phone and they could access your bitcoin app, they could clean out your bitcoins up to what ever daily limit there may be on the BTCATM.

Doesnt make sense: If someone has your phone with bitcoin-app without pin they can clean out your complete balance with no limit and without the use of some bitcoin ATM by just sending the bitcoins to their wallet.

That is assuming the thief has a bitcoin wallet, most thieves i know dont want to go through all the trouble of going through a service to convert bitcoins to cash/dollars, it makes it super easy to quickly and anonymously make cash quick. Its not that they cant use another wallet like you stated, just super easy with a BTCATM....thieves them to be lazy and want the least amount of effort.

[TTBit]

Bitcoins -> Vendor Scrip instead of Bitcoins -> Cash

I provide a machine to Joe's Bar (and Alice's Laundromat, Bill's Bike shop)etc. The machine can do Cash -> Bitcoins exactly the way demonstrated. But it can also do Bitcoins -> Joe's Bar Scrip to pay for a bill. You send BTC to the machine and it spits out a $74.14 coupon only good at Joe's Bar, and for that night only. Joe would need a way to prove it came from the machine, easily scan a receipt with smart phone.

The next day, I visit Joes Bar and give cash for the scrip. My money comes from the few % off of the bid/ask.

[deeplink]

In what way would a bar that sells bitcoin take bitcoin for their beer?
If the machine was the other way round, I would understand your point. You could walk in with bitcoins only and get a beer even if the shop owner had no clue of bitcoin. It would facilitate the conversion of shops to "accept" bitcoin and the commission would make sense as the customer would pay 1% to the bar on top of the beer they bought.

You're right, I was assuming that a bar that has a USD->Bitcoin ATM would also accept BTC for beer, but that would not necessarily be the case. It would be schizophrenic though to have the ATM and not accept BTC.

Is it really schizophrenic to buy a machine that magically accumulates thousands of dollars every month if I'm allowed to keep 1% in case I send the rest to the guy that sold me this magic box? Even if the bar owner cares about what bitcoins are, does he really need to accept them for his business? In Germany we have machines in bars that sell cigarettes that you are not allowed to use in that bar neither. Same with condoms.

Condom machines promote safe sex. They are not offered because bar owners want their customers to have sex in the bar. At least, I have lived in Germany and I was not aware of that.

Smoking is not allowed in bars because the government prohibits it, not because of free choice. The bar owner and customers preference is that they would rather decide for themselves if the bar is smoking or non-smoking.

If a bar doesn't care about the customers they want to attract, then they would offer any machine they can get their hands on, as long as it generates marginal profit, whether it is for cigarettes, condoms, gambling, etc. I argue that most bars do have a vision about the type of customers they want to attract. So most bars will only offer machines as a service to their customers if that is in line with their vision. You won't find a condom machine in the pub next to the church. But I also can't imagine an Irish pub without a cigarettes machine.

Schizophrenic is hyperbole for the sake of argument. I think offering a Bitcoin ATM and not accepting payment in Bitcoin would reveal a serious schizophrenic business vision on part of the bar owner.

[Seal]

Very cool. Wishing them all the best. I hope it takes off for both their sake and the sake of bitcoin. I would totally use this to deposit any spare cash in my wallet back to bitcoin.

[sunnankar]

I think offering a Bitcoin ATM and not accepting payment in Bitcoin would reveal a serious schizophrenic business vision on part of the bar owner.

Perhaps. I would think shop owners would find the profit margins on machines pretty good and the machines would act like advertising bringing in additional foot traffic. So even if the machines did not make much money selling bitcoins they could make money selling other stuff.

[enquirer]

Right now demand for bitcoins far outstrips the supply, so many people will drive to the bar only to get some coins, and maybe they will celebrate their new purchase with a beer or two

[axus]

There's only one place I can see a market for this.  It would be perfect in a coin/collectible shop where people go to buy and sell gold.  Instead of buying gold coins, they could buy some bitcoins.

[imanikin]

Fantastic machine, but to be complete it should be able to do also the opposite: convert bitcoins to cash.

-1 To be completely banned, it should convert B to cash. No significant government would allow these machines all over the place laundering money without KYC, and against the current AML laws! 

For many people here, B is a one-way ticket out of fiat, and the goal is to not use fiat unless one absolutely must. So, i think it's perfect as is and will do fine without B>fiat conversion...

If there is no local video surveillance, it would be a great way to buy B pseudonanymously.

[ShireSilver]

I used the machine and they did a good job on it. There's a few finishing touches it needs, but I think it can be very successful.

IMHO they just need to

• Hide the guts that are visible through the scan window
• Improve the camera so smaller QR codes can be used
• Harden the case

I have a business card (laminated) with an address QR code on it, and it was too small. They were able to work around that, and the deposits to your wallet are lightning fast.

Overall, very impressed.

[johnyj]

Pretty awesome!

It works exactly as western union without all those hassles of filling the form, paying high fee etc...

[The-Real-Link]

WOW that's going to be awesome if it gets out there in any quantity.

[Zomdifros]

I think this thing could work great for money transfers to foreign countries:

• Suppose a money transfer company has an office in Los Angeles and in Mexico City
• The office in LA installs one of these machines -> Mexicans can hand over cash dollars to send to their family
• If their family in Mexico City has a Bitcoin account, which is unlikely, they could send the money directly
• If their family in Mexico doesn't have a Bitcoin account yet, the money dealer sends the bitcoins to the company account
• The office in Mexico City immediately receives a notice that the money has been sent
• They could hand out cash US dollars to the family, who has been contacted by phone and is waiting at the counter
• The money dealer has an account at a Bitcoin exchange and can easily sell bitcoins for US dollars to be deposited in their Mexican bank account, which could then be used to hand out to the recipients
• Compared to other services like Western Union, money transfer is instant, costs are much lower and this system is easier to use for the money transfer companies

[whitslack]

I wonder what the business model is though. As said on other threads, these machines need maintenance and are not vandalism stable. You can't just put it near the toilets and forget about them. Most likely you would put them on the bar with the bar tender pulling cash out every now and then.

Ok, so now there is this machine. I own a bar in NH. Why would I want it? Commission is 1%. Turn over is $1000 per month (as long as I'm the only one in town) and the machine costs $2000 with internet and electricity? That would mean the commissions pay for it in 200 months? Which bar would do that now? Ok, in New York it would have a turn over of maybe $10k paying for itself if 2 years but which bar would believe that? Sure the makers of the BATM dream of selling thousands but I guess they are ahead of time with this. Either they pay bars to be allowed to put the machine there and earn the commissions or the bars are not ready for that yet.

The business model is to manufacture and sell machines to merchants. They can set the commission to whatever they want, and they keep it all. We are not looking to be a service provider. The motivation for us is to promote Bitcoin globally so our own investments in Bitcoin appreciate in value and, secondarily, to turn a profit on selling machines. The motivation for the merchant is to earn a continuous profit stream on the commissions.

$2000 would be on the high end of the price range we would ask for the machine. We're thinking more in the $1000-1500 range. Electricity usage is minimal: it draws around 40 watts (most of which is for the screen backlight). It doesn't need a dedicated Internet connection; most places that would install this would already have Wi-Fi on site. We'll also have a 3G option, and that will of course have a monthly service fee from a cellular service provider.

The initial target audience is retail establishments that already want to accept bitcoins from customers. Customers who inquire and learn about Bitcoin will naturally want to know where they can acquire them. Such merchants would love to be able to tell their Bitcoin-interested customers that they can purchase bitcoins on site from a machine. Such a feature would establish a repeat-customer loyalty for the merchant as well.

$1000/mo. throughput would be ludicrously low. We put through almost $5500 just at Liberty Forum, which was one weekend. Granted, the Bitcoin adoption density at Liberty Forum is higher than anywhere else in the world (except maybe PorcFest), but adoption is increasing all the time. By the time these machines are ready for mass production, there will be areas with high enough adoption density to make a compelling business case for installing a machine in a high-traffic location.

[giszmo]

I wonder what the business model is though. As said on other threads, these machines need maintenance and are not vandalism stable. You can't just put it near the toilets and forget about them. Most likely you would put them on the bar with the bar tender pulling cash out every now and then.

Ok, so now there is this machine. I own a bar in NH. Why would I want it? Commission is 1%. Turn over is $1000 per month (as long as I'm the only one in town) and the machine costs $2000 with internet and electricity? That would mean the commissions pay for it in 200 months? Which bar would do that now? Ok, in New York it would have a turn over of maybe $10k paying for itself if 2 years but which bar would believe that? Sure the makers of the BATM dream of selling thousands but I guess they are ahead of time with this. Either they pay bars to be allowed to put the machine there and earn the commissions or the bars are not ready for that yet.

The business model is to manufacture and sell machines to merchants. They can set the commission to whatever they want, and they keep it all. We are not looking to be a service provider. The motivation for us is to promote Bitcoin globally so our own investments in Bitcoin appreciate in value and, secondarily, to turn a profit on selling machines. The motivation for the merchant is to earn a continuous profit stream on the commissions.

$2000 would be on the high end of the price range we would ask for the machine. We're thinking more in the $1000-1500 range. Electricity usage is minimal: it draws around 40 watts (most of which is for the screen backlight). It doesn't need a dedicated Internet connection; most places that would install this would already have Wi-Fi on site. We'll also have a 3G option, and that will of course have a monthly service fee from a cellular service provider.

The initial target audience is retail establishments that already want to accept bitcoins from customers. Customers who inquire and learn about Bitcoin will naturally want to know where they can acquire them. Such merchants would love to be able to tell their Bitcoin-interested customers that they can purchase bitcoins on site from a machine. Such a feature would establish a repeat-customer loyalty for the merchant as well.

$1000/mo. throughput would be ludicrously low. We put through almost $5500 just at Liberty Forum, which was one weekend. Granted, the Bitcoin adoption density at Liberty Forum is higher than anywhere else in the world (except maybe PorcFest), but adoption is increasing all the time. By the time these machines are ready for mass production, there will be areas with high enough adoption density to make a compelling business case for installing a machine in a high-traffic location.

Ok so the liquidity would come from the bar running this machine, not from your service? That is a huge maintenance bonus.
Ok so it is for places that accept bitcoins and want an easy answer to where to obtain bitcoins? Then maybe they set the fee to 10% just to offer some solution but not to attract people from a 200 miles radius to buy cheap coins. This way it makes sense to have it in a shop that accepts bitcoins although it is a bit artificial to buy the coins I'm intending to spend in the same shop where I could pay with $$ for x% less directly. Well, it's new so people will use it.

So you take the $5.5k/week at Liberty Forum as a reference value with all the geeks and reporters that tried it out just to know what it was? And want to sell thousands? In Germany there is exactly one shop I know of that accepts bitcoin and I am almost 100% sure he is not getting $5.5k worth of bitcoins per month. I know in the USA there are some more shops, but thousands? To make a turnover of thousands each? No way. BitPay bragged about having sold their solution to n customers and days later they bragged about having processed 2n purchases. Sorry I don't remember what n was exactly but 2 purchases per webshop is exactly nothing and that's about what I would expect if you managed to bulk sell these BATMs to McDonalds for example. Having one in every major city, yes, that would work but not thousands. Not this year and maybe not next year neither. I hope you proof me wrong.

[Dusty]

The business model is to manufacture and sell machines to merchants. They can set the commission to whatever they want, and they keep it all. We are not looking to be a service provider. The motivation for us is to promote Bitcoin globally so our own investments in Bitcoin appreciate in value and, secondarily, to turn a profit on selling machines. The motivation for the merchant is to earn a continuous profit stream on the commissions.

Hello whitslack,
personally I think there is way too little usage of Bitcoin to make your machine profitable for a casual magazine, but the thing could be completely different if your ATM could do also the opposite: convert bitcoins to cash.

Have you thought about it?
Is it technically feasible, and would you consider it?

[Elwar]

I went to a bar once where they had an ATM there and they would only accept cash (no cards). So when you went to pay your bill you would go to the ATM and get cash, then give it to the bartender. I assume it was because the bar did not want to claim all of the money they made at the bar.

I have also owned a bar and would not really see the point in cash paying customers converting their cash to bitcoins. It would be of little benefit to me as a bar owner other than the novelty factor of getting a few geeks to come in and try it out to promote Bitcoin.

What would make this ideal would be an actual ATM that accepted ATM/debit cards which would then convert it to Bitcoin (if necessary for legal reasons it could spit out cash to then be fed into the cash to bitcoin portion. That way you could say that you charge 3% for cards but take bitcoins for no extra charge. They would then have the incentive to want to save 3% and go through the process to get the BTC.

[13Charlie]

Sure the makers of the BATM dream of selling thousands but I guess they are ahead of time with this. Either they pay bars to be allowed to put the machine there and earn the commissions or the bars are not ready for that yet.

I agree. It would be an incredibly hard sell to any bar/restaurant/retail shop owner.
Also, what about laws governing currency exchanges?
Would the new BATM owner not be regulated by these laws?
Would they have to buy a BATM and a currency exchange license?

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see these things in every other bar or restaurant.
But it seems this project may be starting off on the wrong foot.

[ShireSilver]

Also, what about laws governing currency exchanges?
Would the new BATM owner not be regulated by these laws?
Would they have to buy a BATM and a currency exchange license?

I just want to point out that here in New Hampshire, destination of the Free State Project, devices like this are covered under vending machine laws and not ATM laws as long as they aren't depositing into bank accounts. The fact that this machine is limited in functionality actually gives it an advantage in that it can slip around regulatory hurdles.

[matonis]

Sure the makers of the BATM dream of selling thousands but I guess they are ahead of time with this. Either they pay bars to be allowed to put the machine there and earn the commissions or the bars are not ready for that yet.

I agree. It would be an incredibly hard sell to any bar/restaurant/retail shop owner.
Also, what about laws governing currency exchanges?
Would the new BATM owner not be regulated by these laws?
Would they have to buy a BATM and a currency exchange license?

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see these things in every other bar or restaurant.
But it seems this project may be starting off on the wrong foot.

I disagree. How is this any different than installing a regular vending machine that sells peanuts and condoms? Why do you automatically assume the worst and shout "Oh my God, it's a currency exchange machine and it's unlicensed!"

People, it is a simple vending machine that sells intangible math puzzles. They could also build a machine that sells air guitars. It would be the same regulations.

[matonis]

I think offering a Bitcoin ATM and not accepting payment in Bitcoin would reveal a serious schizophrenic business vision on part of the bar owner.

Perhaps. I would think shop owners would find the profit margins on machines pretty good and the machines would act like advertising bringing in additional foot traffic. So even if the machines did not make much money selling bitcoins they could make money selling other stuff.

+1  The Bitcoin Machines would generate a lot of traffic and I would definitely go to stores that had them (and use them). They're going to need to be bolted down a little better cuz they'll be stuffed full o' cash from all of the people wanting bitcoins privately.

[13Charlie]

Why do you automatically assume the worst and shout "Oh my God, it's a currency exchange machine and it's unlicensed!"

I was not assuming the worst or shouting anything.
I was asking questions in hopes that someone would provide answers.

Like this

I just want to point out that here in New Hampshire, destination of the Free State Project, devices like this are covered under vending machine laws and not ATM laws as long as they aren't depositing into bank accounts. The fact that this machine is limited in functionality actually gives it an advantage in that it can slip around regulatory hurdles.

@ShireSilver - Thanks for clearing that up for me.

[Richy_T]

I went to a bar once where they had an ATM there and they would only accept cash (no cards). So when you went to pay your bill you would go to the ATM and get cash, then give it to the bartender. I assume it was because the bar did not want to claim all of the money they made at the bar.

If they take your card, they pay the fee, if they make you use their ATM, they get all the money and a kickback from the ATM provider. That's all it's about.

[Richy_T]

The business model is to manufacture and sell machines to merchants. They can set the commission to whatever they want, and they keep it all. We are not looking to be a service provider. The motivation for us is to promote Bitcoin globally so our own investments in Bitcoin appreciate in value and, secondarily, to turn a profit on selling machines. The motivation for the merchant is to earn a continuous profit stream on the commissions.

You may not want to be a service provider but you may want to partner with someone who would.

A model I have seen before is that machines are dropped off at bar, coffee shop, whatever at no cost to the proprietor and when the money is counted up at the end of the month, the shop owner gets a part of the profits. This takes all of the risk and cost from the shop owner (something often a huge issue in the current economic climate). The middleman provides flexibility but takes a profit from the deal.

The problem would be finding someone willing to take the risk. But I suspect you might have more of an problem convincing shop owners to jump on-board. It would probably be easier and safer to find a way of taking some of that risk from the middleman than from a shop owner too.

[420]

Is this up and running? berwick wanted the same thing in Cyprus