From ATMs to pharmacies, you can now buy bitcoin almost anywhere

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Today, Scanlan is CTO at Coinmover, a Lynn company that makes bitcoin vending machines, essentially vending machines that sell digital currency. Today, there are just over 100 of his company’s machines in retail stores in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Washington state, each selling an average of around $ 40,000 in cryptocurrency. each month. That’s less than the price of a single bitcoin, which has rebounded between $ 44,000 and $ 52,000 in recent days. But Scanlans is just getting started. It plans to have 1,250 machines in 18 states by the end of the year.

There is a nationwide increase in easier ways to buy cryptocurrency, with bitcoin ATMs leading the way. According to industry monitoring site Coin ATM Radar, there were around 6,000 such machines in the United States at this time last year, but over 26,000 today, with hundreds of others installed weekly.

And that only counts pure bitcoin ATMs, the ones that only sell cryptocurrency. In addition, thousands of traditional ATMs have been modified to support crypto purchases as well. Then there is Coinstar, which makes the coin counting machines that are found in many American supermarkets. About 7,500 of these machines are now selling bitcoin, and that number is expected to grow to 10,000 by the end of the year. Researchers at another site, How Many Bitcoin ATMs, added these hybrid machines to the mix and estimate that there are more than 42,000 bitcoin ATMs in the United States today.

Sophisticated cryptocurrency users mostly buy online, through websites or smartphone apps. But the rise of bitcoin ATMs provides an easy ramp for first-time buyers.

Financial technology giant NCR has stepped into the game. Last month, NCR acquired Boston-based LibertyX, one of the first bitcoin ATM companies. Nowadays, LibertyX mainly makes software to add crypto selling capabilities to standard ATMs and retail point of sale devices, the modern equivalent of cash registers.

NCR is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of ATMs and point-of-sale devices. The acquisition of LibertyX doesn’t just mean thousands of additional crypto ATMs. It could also mean that thousands of retail stores could sell crypto just like goodies.

It’s already happening. LibertyX has made deals with retailers CVS, Rite Aid, and 7-Eleven to allow bitcoin purchases at certain stores. A customer uses a LibertyX smartphone app to enter the amount they want to purchase, up to $ 500 per day. A barcode appears on the phone screen. An employee scans the barcode and the customer hands over the money. It’s instantly added to the customer’s bitcoin account, minus a $ 4.95 transaction fee.

LibertyX says this service is now available in more than 20,000 retail stores. But this is news for many retailers. Four CVS stores contacted by the Globe said they knew nothing about the bitcoin sale.

LibertyX co-founder Chris Yim said this appears to be a cashier outreach issue, and added that we have a lot of volume in Massachusetts.

To purchase bitcoin at a retail store, the buyer must install the LibertyX app a few days in advance and provide detailed personal information, including source of income and location. This information is required by federal banking regulators and is aimed at preventing criminals from using bitcoin to launder illicit money. It takes several days to confirm the information and authorize the user to purchase bitcoin from a retail store.

But at one of the Coinmovers ATMs, anyone can immediately buy up to $ 2,500 in bitcoin per day, just providing a name, email address, and phone number. Those wishing to purchase larger quantities should provide more detailed information and wait several days for approval.

A Coinmover machine sells not only bitcoin, but other cryptocurrencies, such as Ether, Litecoin, and Dogecoin. The user installs a crypto wallet app on their smartphone, which displays a QR code. Then they press the phone screen against a scanner built into the ATM and insert the desired amount of money. The ATM reads the wallet code from the phone and transfers the correct amount of digital currency to that wallet.

The process only takes about a minute, but it is expensive. The transaction fees for a bitcoin ATM purchase range from $ 2.95 to $ 5.95. The buyer also pays a mark-up of 10-15% above the market rate for currencies. For example, a recent $ 20 bitcoin purchase, after fees and markup, left the buyer with only $ 12.36 of the currency.

So who would use these machines? Anyone with a traditional bank account can use smartphone apps to buy cryptocurrencies with very low fees. For example, it only costs 45 cents to buy $ 20 worth of bitcoin using a debit card and a program called Cash App. Other personal finance apps from companies like PayPal and Robinhood also support low cost crypto trading.

Francisco J. Alvarez-Evangelista, banking analyst at Aite-Novarica Group, said Bitcoin ATMs could make sense for people in developing countries with limited access to banks. But the United States is a difficult market to approach, he said, because there are many easier ways to acquire and sell bitcoin.

Still, the machines may appeal to U.S. crypto investors with an obsessive privacy concern, and people looking for a quick and easy way to send money overseas. Once someone purchases bitcoin from an ATM, they can transfer the money instantly to a relative’s bitcoin address anywhere in the world. Even with all the fees, we’re cheaper than Western Union in some places, Scanlan said.

Additionally, cryptocurrency purchased through a bank cannot be spent until the transaction is fully cleared, which can take several days. With these machines, you immediately get your cryptocurrency, Scanlan said. This is why people are willing to pay more.

According to a University of Chicago survey, 13% of American adults have bought or sold cryptocurrency in the past year. That’s almost 33 million people. How many more will buy, when thousands of retail stores and ATMs become bitcoin counters? were about to find out.

Hiawatha Bray can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeTechLab.

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