The steady advance of Bitcoin towards widespread acceptance continued as a company announced plans to introduce the first Bitcoin ATMs on U.S. soil.
Robocoin installed a similar ATM in Vancouver, Canada last year. In the ATM’s first month of operation it processed over $900,000 in transactions.
On the heels of that success, the company now plans to install Bitcoin ATMs in Seattle, Washington and Austin, Texas. A second Canadian one will be installed in Calgary, Alberta as well.
The ATMs should be available for use by the end of this month.
The machines will allow anyone to deposit cash to buy bitcoins for a fee. The funds will be transferred to a virtual wallet via smartphones, or the machines will print out a receipt with all deposit and virtual wallet information.
To comply with laws and regulations, the ATMs will scan and record government-issued identification, such as a driver’s license or passport, to confirm the identity of the user.
The identification process will allow governments, wary of the ease of hiding or laundering money via Bitcoin, to subpoena transaction information if necessary. The necessity of such measures is controversial.
As Bitcoin advocates point out, many claims about Bitcoin are overblown or disingenuous, such as the anonymity of bitcoin transactions. Traceable information for all transactions is built into a public ledger visible to all Bitcoin users.
Anyone who is still skeptical of the risks or possible criminal use of bitcoins should check out this fantastic tongue-in-cheek article from Ledra Capital.
Going forward, Robocoin also plans to introduce Bitcoin ATMs in Asia and Europe while expanding in North America.
The operator of Robocoin’s Vancouver ATM, Bitcoiniacs, separately announced plans to launch Bitcoin ATMs in London and Singapore in the near future as well.
Here is a look at the Robocoin ATMs, worth about $19,000 each, waiting to be deployed:
