Crypto is everywhere now. But yet, it’s hard to get in. Why? The answer is simple: there’s no proper infrastructure yet. If you want to buy some BTC, you should find a way to buy it from someone. And it’s a hard task. Now you can buy it via localbitcoins or make a wire transfer from your bank account to any exchange. But many banks won’t let you buy crypto, explaining it by trying to protect your funds, blocking transactions, or even closing your accounts. Some governments are fine with crypto, some governments restrict their citizens from buying it. But even if you are allowed to buy it, no service can offer a convenient way to do it online, the fees are too big and you have to do too much to buy something. But I can assure you that there is a way to solve this problem, and that’s crypto ATMs. A crypto ATM is similar to regular one, but with one difference: it lets you buy crypto. No need to search on shady exchanges. Currently there’s more than 450 ATMs in Canada and 1670 in USA, 130 in Austria and 110 in UK. This number grows each day, for example, in January 2017 you could find only 550 ATMs in USA, and in one year their numbers doubled.
Standard ATM connects to the host processor, that delivers the information to the cardholder’s bank, gets the data about his balance and gives or takes his money. If he wants to request cash, the processor takes it from the requester’s bank, and approves dispensing the cash, and if he wants to deposit funds, the processor takes it and sends its money to the bank.
Crypto ATM isn’t connected to any bank, it works directly with blockchain. You can buy any amount, and it transfers your crypto to your wallet. To stabilize the course it usually takes the fee of 5-7% to avoid the loss from volatility. When you insert cash in ATM, it buys crypto somewhere on exchanges, refilling its funds and sends money from its funds to your wallet address. That’s all, transaction complete.
Why is it better than transferring your money to some exchange via wire transfer? The key is the speed. Any transfer from bank could take hours or even days, and in the end you could see that your transfer was blocked because this particular bank doesn’t like crypto. In case of using ATM instead, you get your crypto instantly.
To buy anything in crypto ATM, you should follow these steps:
1) Fin d a crypto ATM in your country, you can use https://coinatmradar.com
2) Enter the sum you want to convert into a cryptocurrency of your choice
3) Put in your phone number, it’s required to verify your identity
4) After receiving an SMS, enter the code you got
5) Scan your ID or your license
6) Now you can either scan your wallet’s QR code or enter your address manually
7) Put in the cash
8) All done! You get your crypto soon, depending on the network’s speed.
It doesn’t matter what crypto you buy, the principles are the same for all the vending machines work. So you should do these steps anyway. But keep in mind that you can hardly find the machines selling Litecoin or Ethereum.
As we mentioned, these ATMs can be found mostly in USA, UK, Canada and some European countries. But the wide range of countries isn’t covered yet. Cryptocurrencies are very popular in Asia, but you can’t find crypto ATMs there. Russia, Belarus, that officially legalizes crypto now, don’t have an infrastructure to make acquiring crypto an easy process for anyone. But it’s crucial for mass adoption. To ensure the success of crypto as international currency, it must be easy to buy, sell and spend. Hence crypto ATMs must be installed everywhere. Please take into account that many companies show their interest while the market is in bull mode and totally disappear when it’s in decline. But over time it will change, since more and more businesses start to accept crypto as a form of legal payment. And as usual, those who were the first will gain the most. There’s a lot of ATM manufacturers, like Genesis Coin, General Bytes, Lamassu, Coinsource and BitAccess. Genesis Coin has more than 800 ATMs installed and supports Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin. Also you can not only buy, but also sell your crypto there.
If we’re talking about ATMs here, it would be a terrible oversight to forget about new promising companies, such as Cryptoforce. As. We mentioned previously, there’s a lack of ATMs in Asia and Russia. This startup wants to fill the void by making an expansion to these countries. Crypto is becoming bigger and bigger, so there should be a huge demand in ATMs, and they have plans to install them in Autumn 2019. It seems that this company has a bright future ahead, so keep them in sight. And let’s hope that in few years all of us will have an opportunity to buy commodities with crypto, and crypto ATM wouldn’t be a rare thing in shopping malls, because that’s all that we’re working for together.