Has anyone thought about a Bitcoin Coinstar machine?

[The Sceptical Chymist]

This just popped into my head today as I was visiting my (semi) local bitcoin ATM after seeing a Coinstar machine at my (truly) local grocery store.  You all know what I'm talking about, right?  These guys:



I've never come across any threads here that have suggested a coin redemption machine might be a good thing to combine with crypto-buying.  Have any of you heard of an idea like that floated around?  I think it'd be fantastic to be able to cash in your change and get crypto in return, and I betcha more people might be inclined to dip their toes into the world of crypto if they could do it this way. 

Any of you think this is a good/bad idea?  I'm certainly no entrepreneur, so there's no way I could create such a thing--nor do I know if Coinstar has a patent on the coin redemption machine thing--but I know there are people with business skills and motivation around these parts who could create such a machine if they wanted to.  I'm just curious as to whether this sounds like something that would gain traction or not.  Bitcoin ATMs seem to be popping up all over the place, so I have to assume that more people are using them.

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[Mbitr]

Wow - great idea !! I imagine any business that runs bitcoin atms can easily run these . I’m sure the tech is quite easy to make or convert from a FIAT coin changer. The biggest problem that I can foresee is the tx fees ??

[Ebede]

This machine is like Bitcoin dispensing machine i have not come across of these before, hoping from the image showing can be of help to buy and sell cryptocurrency? May be it has a specific coin it dispense, will like to come across the this because with it, it will create am impact most especially easy impact to buy cryptocurrency of different kinds, although I don't really know the actual functions of it, just suggesting.

[Charles-Tim]

Any of you think this is a good/bad idea?

I have just watched a video about Coinstar machine, and I think it will be good idea if bitcoin is supported also as part of the services provided. If the coins are to be used to collect the cash, 11.9% of the total worth of the coin will be deducted, bitcoin ATM deduct such a high fee also. So, if bitcoin is included, I do not think it will create any issue, and some people will like to make use of this if bitcoin is supported. I think all needed is to added bitcoin as as part of their service. As people are adopting bitcoin, there will be a time bitcoin will be supported, and it will really be useful for some people.

[RickDeckard]

The current Bitcoin ATM only accept bills as their FIAT currency right (excuse me if I'm saying something wrong, I actually never encountered an Bitcoin ATM machine before, just have seen some videos of it).

Although the pro-activity of coming up with an idea such as this one is great, I have some questions/topics regarding to it's concept that I will try to both expose and explain my point of view:

• There are already lots of ATM's that accept bills as FIAT in order to be converted to cash. I find it strange that the same companies that produce these machines didn't planned in accepting coins right from the beginning. Perhaps they did some kind of market study regarding what's more probable : Having coins in your pocket (loose change I believe) or straight up bills.
• From what I could see, the average (worldwide) fee's in order to buy BTC from these machines is 8.4%. This means that if I had 5 € of "loose change" in my pocket I would pay at least 0,42 € in fees in order to have them exchanged for BTC. I do believe that for low amounts this fee is way too high to be considered (one could consider that for coins the fees probably could be lower?)
• Perhaps it's just me and it really can't be extrapolated to a much wider audience, but the people around my age rarely carry any coins (or at least a nice amount). For reference my age is between 25-30 years old. I think, however, that older people do end up carrying or at least have a nice stash of coins that probably banks would charge them higher fees in order to deposit them in their bank accounts. However, people that are older are less prone to exchange their coins for BTC because most of them for sure hears the name Bitcoin associated with some kind of scam/pyramid scheme on the news (sad but the truth). They don't see the whole picture and hence may not be too keen to put their coins in machines like these.

As an extra note I found this article[1] that shows that "Eight in 10 Britons rely on cash for everyday payments". Albeit an article from 2019 we get the following quote that mostly matches my 3rd point :

The review found 97% of the UK population carry cash and the average amount people have on them is £41. Meanwhile, 85% of those surveyed said they kept some cash at home.

However I do agree that if such machines exist (such as the one in your example) there is a market for them. I would really like to see some kind of study that shows which are the main audience of this kind of machine. I think it would be a really good insight in how we could extrapolate some information for bitcoin adoption (I haven't found any suitable studies/data).

Speaking of Coinstar machines use - 600 pounds of oil-soaked pennies turned into cold, hard cash

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/mar/07/britons-use-cash-everyday-payments-report-finds

[Upgrade00]

Any of you think this is a good/bad idea? 

I think it would be a good idea, I know people who are interested in learning about Bitcoin, but are restricted by capital. If they had a way to convert loose change in their pockets to Bitcoin and play around with the features available, then they could get more interested in understanding how the network works.
I however do not think it will encourage someone who is not interested at all to hold some coins.

[odolvlobo]

This just popped into my head today as I was visiting my (semi) local bitcoin ATM after seeing a Coinstar machine at my (truly) local grocery store. ...

Do you mean like this?

https://www.coinstar.com/bitcoin

[DaveF]

As odolvlobo pointed out they exist already.
The issue is that the last time I checked they have horrible exchange rates / fees and as of now only take paper money to covert to BTC you can't dump in coins.

On that note, someone designed a lightning ATM that does take coins: https://github.com/21isenough/LightningATM  but it's not a real production machine and it's lightning which will alienate the purists.

-Dave

[Smartvirus]

Any of you think this is a good/bad idea?

I have just watched a video about Coinstar machine

I'm African and I love my content thank you but, I feel so dumb right now that a lot of things are still a mystery to most of us. That we have to watch a video clip because I just did before i could understand what is being talked about. It tells how backward the continent and its nations are. The bitcoin ATM is still a thing of wonder and here is a coinstar machine that we barely know a thing about, only see it 8n movies but don't really understand how it works until now. African nations like Nigeria has complete disregard for devalued currency like the coins, kobold and #5 even and here is a machine that could count your coins and give you it's equivalent as gift cards of your specification. Its great!

On either it is a welcomed development for bitcoin, I'm all in on the idea. It would be great having such and I see the workability of it already. This way, people would be encouraged to own bitcoin through the little stocking of coins such as these. Its a matter of programing the coinstar machine to come with special character keys, inputting cryptos as one of its options just as there are various types of gift cards to choose from, for example amazon gift card. In this regard, there should be a crypto option and as such, you input your address manually meanwhile, you let the machine do its counting and then you just pay it and have your coins equivalent in bitcoin forwarded to your wallet. It would be just like you buying coins through bank transfers using a p2p network but in this form, it would have some bank reserve in crypto to transfer from.

This is a way in which, the banks or coinstar machine inventors can play a role in the crypto fields and it would go a long way to promoting cryptos.

[RickDeckard]

On that note, someone designed a lightning ATM that does take coins: https://github.com/21isenough/LightningATM  but it's not a real production machine and it's lightning which will alienate the purists.

Being able to built a machine (albeit in a small scale and not very durable) for around 80 USD is quite outstanding! However I do believe companies could build on top of this "idea" to create something more robust/durable.

Regarding your point of being "it's lightning which will alienate the purists" I don't think these kind of machines are mostly targeted at purists (or at least they don't aim only that specific group). Their intent is to be able to be more close to the average Joe that just heard about BTC and that's it's willing to get it in an easy way without using Exchanges or by going trough "complicated" KYC procedures.

Sure the "purists" also may end up considering using these kind of machines due to be privacy (but the high fees may discourage that) but I really believe that this kind of machine is used more for a wider audience who isn't worried about paying a higher fee for a higher convenience. Plus, if you are an "average Joe" then you probably won't even be aware what are considered low fee's, so chances are that you'll consider that fee a "standard" one.

I wonder, did anyone here ever used a Bitcoin machine to exchange a particular large sum?

[DaveF]

I wonder, did anyone here ever used a Bitcoin machine to exchange a particular large sum?

Define "large sum"
I sold $500 of ETH back in 2017 at this one during the bull run: https://coinatmradar.com/bitcoin_atm/3726/bitcoin-atm-genesis-coin-las-vegas-jays-market/
I bought $100 of BTC now and then at the ones in Brooklyn / Queens in 2016

Everything else was $20 / $50 purchase here and there when I saw a machine while I was traveling just to do it.

To some people that's major money, to others it's less then they spent on drinks with lunch.

-Dave

[RickDeckard]

Define "large sum"
-snip-

Yeah I guess that really depends on the person and what he/she sees as being defined as "large sum". For me I was thinking about larger numbers > $10,000 USD and above, but I do reckon it totally depends on the person.

Did you ever specifically went out to look for an ATM in order to use it or the uses that you gave it was simply due to "being closer" to one and decided to use it?

[DaveF]

Define "large sum"
-snip-

Yeah I guess that really depends on the person and what he/she sees as being defined as "large sum". For me I was thinking about larger numbers > $10,000 USD and above, but I do reckon it totally depends on the person.

Did you ever specifically went out to look for an ATM in order to use it or the uses that you gave it was simply due to "being closer" to one and decided to use it?

The one in LV I went to because someone had paid me $100 in ETH that had gone up 5X and it was just sitting in a wallet on my phone so I wanted to do something with it.
I had known about that ATM due to a previous search for a BTC ATM in Vegas so I figured why not.

The purchases I made around NY were a but of "I know where they are" and "Lets see if I can find a new one" no real planning for the most part.

-Dave

[jjdub7]

This is a very interesting thing and I think it's a good idea. It might even encourage more people to use cryptocurrencies for purposes other than investing and accumulating in crypto wallets. I don't know, I'm personally interested and I would be happy to see such machines around me.

[OgNasty]

This just popped into my head today as I was visiting my (semi) local bitcoin ATM after seeing a Coinstar machine at my (truly) local grocery store. ...

Do you mean like this?

https://www.coinstar.com/bitcoin

I was confused by this also. He literally posted a picture of the machine that already exists... People realize this is something that’s in grocery stores all across the nation right now right? I haven’t personally used one but I know of people who have. I don’t know the numbers but I assume they’re pretty popular.

[RickDeckard]

This just popped into my head today as I was visiting my (semi) local bitcoin ATM after seeing a Coinstar machine at my (truly) local grocery store. ...

Do you mean like this?

https://www.coinstar.com/bitcoin

I was confused by this also. He literally posted a picture of the machine that already exists... People realize this is something that’s in grocery stores all across the nation right now right? I haven’t personally used one but I know of people who have. I don’t know the numbers but I assume they’re pretty popular.

For some odd and strange reason, I can't seem to open neither the coinstar.com nor coinstar.com/bitcoin websites. I did however find this specific entry[1]

With more than 21,000 machines worldwide, Coinstar machines are easy to find and use. Each year, Coinstar processes 43 billion coins, helping consumers turn their loose change into cash or a charity donation. (...)

That's...quite impressive. We're still talking about a 10.9 % fee[2] for the exchange (ouch!) and it seems that the money voucher that they give you has to be spent on the day that is issued[2], but I really didn't knew there was such a huge market for this. I personally never encountered any kind of these machines where I live.

Regarding the Bitcoin Coinstar version, I did find information stating that the service that actually does the exchange charges a 4 % fee[3], but I believe this doesn't take in consideration the fees from Coinstar side (the 4% fees are referring to Coinme only). What ended up being a downside for me was the fact that this process does still need some sort of KYC phase, and that is a turn off (at least it would be for me). Here's an experience from a Reddit user[4] (post two years old) :

• 1st - Insert bills in the machine
• 2nd - Enter your phone number
• 3rd -You get a voucher to redeem your coins
• 4th -Go to coinme.com/redeem to redeem your voucher
• 5th -Fill in your email, phone, fullname and code
• 6th -You then need to verify your identity (powered by onfido). You can either use your passport, driver license, or ID.
• 7th - You are asked to take a selfie
• Verification happens under 5mins (Machile learning?) and you are asked to create a wallet on https://www.coinmewallet.com/
• Once you've created your wallet, it asks for the PIN and the bitcoins are transferred to your wallet.
• From there, you can receive and send your Bitcoins.

The whole process wasn't as lean as I though it was, but I guess it's another form of getting Bitcoin out there and I'm sure some people will find it useful.

[1] https://www.coinstar.co.uk/retail-solutions
[2] https://www.coinstar.co.uk/GetCash
[3] https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-purchases-roll-out-to-2-200-us-coinstar-kiosks-as-partnership-expands
[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/annjjp/i_bought_some_bitcoin_at_a_coinstar_kiosk/