Bitcoin has been slowly crawling towards attaining the mainstream currency status. There have been few small wins along the way which includes few changes in regulations which is on par with those applicable to fiat currency as well. On the physical front, there are Bitcoin ATMs too, which look somewhat similar to traditional ATMs except for the fact that it can either dispense bitcoin for cash or cash for bitcoin or both.
Bitcoin ATMs have been around for a while now and their numbers are also increasing around the world. However, according to few people, the Bitcoin ATM industry in its current form may not find it sustainable for long. According to a recent report on Coindesk, one of the cryptocurrency news publication Diebold’s Vice President of global software and strategy has mentioned that the Bitcoin ATM industry is currently following a flawed distribution model that prevents them from expanding into a truly global business.
These Bitcoin ATMs, about 400 of them across the world are currently targeted towards local communities and small markets instead of attempting to expand the network on an international scale. He also compares the Bitcoin ATMs with limited features to conventional ATMs which offer a wide range of features including bill payment and other options. The value addition offered by conventional ATMs is greater than that of Bitcoin ATMs which are nothing but mobile bitcoin exchanges.
Diebold Inc. an Ohio based financial and ATM services company is one of the leading manufacturers of ATMs in United States. The company has been exploring blockchain technology and ways to incorporate it into their infrastructure to facilitate fiat as well as digital currency transactions. Even banks are currently working on developing blockchain based technology for fund transfers. Even though Diebold is working on blockchain and bitcoin based technology, they have not launched any products in the market yet.