Swiss rail ticket machines to offer bitcoins

[the_poet]

Bitcoin users will soon be able to buy the digital currency from Swiss rail ticket machines. The pilot project starts on November 11 and will initially last two years to see how much demand there is for the service.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/trial-run_rail-commuters-can-buy-tickets-with-bitcoin/42552776

[Denker]

Uiii that's great news!
Someone told me the Bitcoin ATMs in Switzerland are getting used very often.Especially by people who are living close to the swiss borders.
https://www.bitcoinsuisse.ch/en/bitcoin-atm-network/
5% fee with a 2000CHF limit for unregistered clients.2 way BTMs!!

With ticket machines offering Bitcoin this could be something as well.
1000 ticket machines is a nice number. But you have to register I read.That sucks!

To use the service, customers need to have a bitcoin wallet. They must also identify themselves over their mobile phones and enter a security code.

[bitbunnny]

Realy interesting service. But from swiss people something like this is normal to expect, they are always inovative.
The only limited circumstance could be this registration thing. Many Bitcoin users don't like leaving they data in any form but I suppose this company just want to provide legitimate service and protect themselves.

[Kprawn]

The phone verification and having to register, will scare away some people... the general public do not want to jump through loads of hoops to

travel from point A to B. Well at least someone is trying to offer some services that use Bitcoin... I hope people will support this during this

trial period, so that adoption will be stimulated by this.  

[Wendigo]

The phone verification and having to register, will scare away some people... the general public do not want to jump through loads of hoops to

travel from point A to B. Well at least someone is trying to offer some services that use Bitcoin... I hope people will support this during this

trial period, so that adoption will be stimulated by this.  

They are talking about selling Bitcoins to people for cash using their phones, not tickets 

[n691309]

Bitcoin users will soon be able to buy the digital currency from Swiss rail ticket machines. The pilot project starts on November 11 and will initially last two years to see how much demand there is for the service.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/trial-run_rail-commuters-can-buy-tickets-with-bitcoin/42552776

We like this idea of the Swiss government and the fees on every transaction seems to be 6%, but why is the phone verification needed when they have the body and face on their cameras?

[Milkduds]

So they are selling bitcoin at the rail station but its a bit gray if you can use it on the rail as well,say to by a ticket or did I miss a segment?
6% is a bit hefty if they want people to use it on the rail system as well,being dinged that amount each time would be pointless. Maybe I just answered my question!
I guess a rail system is the best place to get the most traffic,there was one in the rail system here but it disappeared. That said most are very close to 2 blocks from the stations,so they do seem to be in high traffic areas like the Swiss are planning to be in.

I hope these stations to buy bitcoin are stand alone or it could discourage new users due to not wanting to hold up a line up trying to buy rail passes.
The photo does not make it clear if this is the set up.

[neochiny]

The phone verification and having to register, will scare away some people... the general public do not want to jump through loads of hoops to

travel from point A to B. Well at least someone is trying to offer some services that use Bitcoin... I hope people will support this during this

trial period, so that adoption will be stimulated by this.  

They are talking about selling Bitcoins to people for cash using their phones, not tickets  

Well, Yes. But to be fair, the link text "http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/trial-run_rail-commuters-can-buy-tickets-with-bitcoin/42552776" is really in conflict with the actual article content and title "Rail ticket machines to offer bitcoins" .  


Gotta admit, I myself thought it really was about being able to buy train tickets with bitcoin. lol.
But the article itself doesn't mention anything about that. It's just about buying bitcoin with cash through the rail ticket machines.
swissinfo.ch really should clear up that misleading link text. This is confusing.

[Doubler Disburser 232515]

https://www.bitcoinsuisse.ch/en/bitcoin-atm-network/
5% fee with a 2000CHF limit for unregistered clients.2 way BTMs!!

With ticket machines offering Bitcoin this could be something as well.
1000 ticket machines is a nice number. But you have to register I read.That sucks!

A thousand BitCoin machines is a nice number - I can't say I know anything much about the Swiss railways, but even still, one hundred stations with ten BitCoin ATM's per station is a nice starting number. (Five ATMs at two hundred stations perhaps? - Do they have that many stations?)

Is CHF the Swiss Frank?  What's the rate of exchange for exchanging to say the Euro or UK Pound?  It'd be nice to put it into context of the surrounding fiat currencies.

A two year pilot program is definitely a long term experiment, not just for seasonal variations in actual rail travel, but for those who are frequently returning to top up their BitCoin Wallets then using the coins for other things.

[cpfreeplz]

That's definitely logical to put it somewhere with so much foot traffic. Good for them for taking the initiative! I hope it does well and other cou tries can see the value to expand bitcoin acceptance   (I really only care about Canada haha. Others would be nice for overall adoption though.)

[Shiroslullaby]

I would say that overall its a very good thing.
It shows that people in the government are paying attention to the technology and willing to test whether it will work.
This adds a ton of legitimacy to any project.

Also, the ability to convert fiat currency to Bitcoin is one of the barriers that still prevents a lot of people from becoming users.
We definitely need more services to convert fiat to Bitcoin and vice versa to gain mass adoption.

[Doamader]

Sure its one of the places where several people does cross all days. Im not surprised to see Swiss taking the first steps to implement and use bitcoin and crypto world, they are very advanced against several countries, and 6% is a low fee if we try to sell or buy local we do pay above those usually.

[Mia Wallace]

Kudos to the Swiss railway to do this ,it is a major decision when it comes to the crypto world and for them to accept the fact that bitcoin as the future is a awesome thing for the bitcoin community.

[European Central Bank]

Kudos to the Swiss railway to do this ,it is a major decision when it comes to the crypto world and for them to accept the fact that bitcoin as the future is a awesome thing for the bitcoin community.

you can buy phone credit, electricity bills and all sorts of other things through the same terminals so it's not a big deal for them to add bitcoin. i'm curious to see if there's any uptake. there've been options like this in other countries with thousands of outlets and nothing was heard from them again.

[shinratensei_]

I doubt about the future of this decision and it's not my first time are heard about some news like this and all of the interesting ideas like this one is not run for smooth or i can say get fail because the demand are very less.