Bitcoin ATM's are good - ubiquitous mass adoption for crypto. They are bad - semi-anonymous and anti-AML. They are ugly-high fees and bad exchange rates and security concerns. Why are they being installed so fast? Who uses them? Where are they coming in? Regulations and secrecy and taxes oh my!
Bitcoin ATMs, or BTMs, are being installed with exponential growth all around the world. This is very good news for bitcoin, especially if you are a Rene Girard fan and believe in mimetic behavior, or monkey see monkey do. All of the BTM's are locally regulated and are moving steadily under increasing AML (anti money laundering) and KYC (know your customer) laws, with ID's and fingerprints and phone numbers becoming standard. This will make Bitcoin easy to use for Grandma. Many BTM's will create a paper wallet on the spot if needed.
Using a BTM can be ug-lee - often cheezy, lousy exchange rates (spreads you could drive a truck through in wall street slang) and high (not totally disclosed) service fees. Expect to pay 5-20% more for the Japanese style joy of using the pretty, colorful vending machine to buy and sell your magical internet money.
BTMs can be bad, very bad, in many ways. Like any ATM, they can be hacked, with skimmer setups or injecting malicious code. Also, can you really trust the paper wallet printer on a public machine ? Might want to transfer those coins again very fast. But the real draw for the criminally minded - the anonymous draw of the vending machine. The reason cigarette machines got banned, the reason it's a thrill to buy whiskey (or condoms or underwear etc) from a vending machine in Japan.
The one huge reason to use a Bitcoin ATM? Privacy. You could say convenience, but really that would include avoiding all the KYC & AML red tape. And why do many people want privacy? For avoiding taxes, laundering money, and skirting international transfer regulations. Paying that 15% extra looks like a bargain if you are planning to evade taxes on capital gains.
So BTMs are on the front line of cat and mouse games with regulators. The first BTM in the USA was in New Mexico. The owner wanted to put it in San Fran but tried to avoid the heavy regulation of Californication. Still had to do manual KYC and it lasted only six months. The first BTM in Dubai lasted exactly two days before being ripped out. The first BTM in India ended quickly with the owner being arrested!
America has the most Bitcoin ATMS of any country. Adjusting for population and first world-ness, France has by far the least. This makes sense from an evasive point of view - France is just now planning crypto regulation.
The early French home of a bitcoin ATM, Le Maison du Bitcoin (with a touch of the old Google Translate) gives some insights. This french site repeats over and over, the best thing about the Bitcoin ATM is being anonymous. Most USA websites, e.g. Reditt, repeat this mantra - pay your taxes! Don't even talk about buying bitcoin anonymously!
The cat and mouse game goes on, state by state by country, putting the squeeze on the fun of the bad. Some machines only want a name and a phone number. The bad have burner phones and non de plumes (my first tech company had Fred Fuzznose biz cards printed up for trying to pick up girls you didn't want to give a real card to.) In the USA, IRS criminal chief John Fort is leading the charge, with palm scanners, fingerprinters, etc. Expect retinal scans soon !
The first European BTM was in Slovakia. As a geographically illiterate Yankee, I thought this might be because Slovakia was behind, but actually they are very far forward, making lots of cars & money etc. and grabbing that first BTM for their smallish (pop. 400k) capital Bratslavia. Of course, they might be willing to switch from the Euro to Bitcoin, given their experience with the last gasp of the Slovakian crown shown here:
Coinatmradar has lots of fun info, including a great chart to find your country's BTM count. What do you think ? Do we love BTM's ?
Love, Dave
