The future of the Bitcoin ATM has apparently arrived, in New York, with a first-of-its-kind cash-accepting machine.
A Bitcoin ATM installed by a British jewelry seller in West Village, Manhattan, is unique in that it currently accepts deposits in cash from users and converts it to Bitcoin, before crediting their wallets with the virtual cryptocurrency.
Such ATMs are the transition interface that could help users experience digital currency transactions, albeit in infrastructure they are more familiar, comment analysts. This is because the average user is more comfortable with ATMs over online exchanges.
As leading analysts, Wedbush Securities explain, the ATM is proving to be the ‘temporary step’ forward to bridge physical currency with digital currency, where the ‘goal’ for bitcoin is to ‘make digital money.’ In addition, the cloak of anonymity that the ATM offers is another key aspect that appeals to bitcoin users.
Currently, the Bitcoin ATM allows deposits via authentication by a smartphone app, at the display unit of the vending machine.
New York already has a few merchants supporting Bitcoin ATMs. As the Chief Marketing Officer, Matt Russell, at a company providing such Bitcoin ATMs explains,
“Having these machines in stores, especially quality stores that sell quality items, is really going to raise the profile of Bitcoin.”
Incidentally PTC is the company behind the installation of the jewelry store unit in Manhattan, and continues to attract those interested in Bitcoin use.
As industry publication Coin ATM Radar indicates, the latest number of Bitcoin ATMs in use are 200 across the world.
One of the largest makers of these differently-enabled ATMs is a Manhattan-based company – Lamassu- which has already sipped 250 of these machines to over 45 countries.