Bitcoin ATM in Canada Is the World’s First — Or Is It?
The news broke yesterday that the world’s first bitcoin ATM, produced by a Nevada company called RoboCoin, was open for business at a Vancouver coffee shop. But wait, didn’t the world’s first bitcoin ATM machine open in Cyprus back in April?
It turns out, despite all the fanfare at the time, it didn’t. Jeff Berwick, one of the primary movers behind the Cyprus project, explained in May on his blog, The DollarVigilante, how he came to be involved in setting up a bitcoin ATM in the first place:
As background, a few months ago I was approached by two young entrepreneurs. They had purchased a semi-workable Bitcoin ATM off of another entrepreneur and were excited about the prospects and approached me to help with marketing to the public and prospective franchisees as well as garnering investment interest. It was a verbal handshake I had done via Skype from the jungles of Guyana while looking at a gold mining enterprise.
So he set off on a media tour that produced articles such as this one from Business Insider, in which Berwick is dubbed “the bitcoin ATM guy.”
Well, there’s a new bitcoin ATM guy in town, RoboCoin CEO Jordan Kelley. Berwick’s dream, born in the jungles of Guyana, died in the US, where problems with a money transmittal license and disagreements with his partners on the project led to the dream being put aside and clearing the way for Robocoin. Berwick’s partnership collapsed in May, right around the time Robocoin first tested its machines at a bitcoin convention in San Jose.
“We’re bringing [bitcoin] to the masses,” Kelley said, standing beside his newly installed machine in Vancouver. The first user of the machine waited three hours for it to be set up, according to Venturebeat, then inserted a $20, had his hand scanned as part of the security process, and received his fraction (about .09) of a bitcoin — one bitcoin trades for about $200 at the moment — and promptly bought a coffee, since the coffee shop accepts bitcoins as payment.
The machines themselves accept 60 kinds of currency and are integrated with two of the larger bitcoin exchanges, Mt. Gox (short for Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange, which gives a hint at Bitcoin’s origins in the dark underbelly of geekdom) and BitStamp.
The RoboCoin machines will be installed in four other locations across Canada in the near future. Machines in the US are planned, but will require additional security measures to be compliant with US regulations.
The bitcoin ATM was “architected with absolute security in mind,” Kelley told Venturebeat. “And secondly, it was really built with compliance in mind … when an operator sets up shop, they have full visibility of their customers, and we’re sending them all the information necessary to adhere to their governmental regulations … to ensure there’s no trouble.” The machine’s owner will make pennies on each transaction, Venturebeat reported.
Will bitcoin ATMs change the world or be gathering dust by this time next year? Will people be buying cars with bitcoins, or only coffee? Anyone care to wage a bet — for a bitcoin?
