First ATM for virtual currency opens in Canada
Print Edition
Three young entrepreneurs have opened what they call the world’s first ATM able to exchange bitcoins for any official currency.
The machine inaugurated on Tuesday and delivered to Vancouver in Western Canada by Robocoin, an American manufacturer, stands against a wall of a popular coffee shop, and resembles an ordinary cash ATM.
However, instead of cash transactions it swaps Canadian dollars for bitcoins, the virtual currency of the Internet invented in 2008 by an anonymous computer scientist known only by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.
Customers have lined up to use the ATM, then used their smart phones to buy coffee and muffins at the Waves coffee shop.
The ATM is the world’s first, said co-owner Mitchel Demeter, a local entrepreneur who started trading in bitcoins several years ago, then earlier this year with two partners set up Bitcoiniacs, a Vancouver storefront money exchange.
He and his friends said they saw ATMs as a business opportunity.
“Nobody had an ATM, everyone was buying and selling on websites,” said Demeter.
Customers use a private key — like a bank PIN number — to access their online account of bitcoins on the ATM.
They withdraw cash equivalents (the conversion rate is currently about one bitcoin for US$200) from their bitcoins, or deposit cash bills. The machine transfers the money on the Internet via the Canadian VirtEx exchange.
Users can then spend their bitcoins with a smartphone, in a similar way to the way interact or credit cards are used, or by transferring the money to purchase goods online.
“It’s the currency of the Internet, as real as any other,” said Demeter.
The volatile currency is as yet unregulated by any government in the world, and it has had a share of notoriety by being used in the drug trade.
Germany, however, became the first country in the world earlier this year to declare bitcoins a “private currency.”
Earlier this month investors were startled when a senior investment officer with giant hedge fund Fortress Investment Group said bitcoins could be used as a cheaper way of transferring money in countries with weak banking systems.
In Vancouver, bitcoins are accepted by some 15 local businesses, from coffee shops to a landscaping business. Bitcoins are also increasingly common in several cities around the world, especially San Francisco, Berlin, and Argentina, and accepted by online companies such as Wordpress.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
