In the early days when I wanted to buy some bitcoin I used localbitcoins who charges about 1% commission I think. Once bitcoin exchanges began to appear I started using them because I was able to purchase btc at a fraction of a percentage. They recently installed a BTM machine in my neighbourhood so I decided to give it a try and I was shocked by two aspects... Firstly the BTC ATM asked for my fingerprint or a scan of my ID which seemed OTT because I was only buying $50 worth of bitcoin. Secondly the BTM fee for this transaction was 10% which seems ludicrously high. Considering how intrusive and expensive BTM's are, I cannot understand why anyone uses these machine. Can someone please explain why they are popping up all over the place?
If you want to buy high quality crystal meth, molly or weed online the $5 fee isn't going to be a problem.
Sometimes exchanges like Coinbase ask for multiple forms of ID, which many people don't have. In the United States only a small percentage of the population own passports. That means some US citizens might only own a drivers license, which isn't going to be enough at many bitcoin exchanges. Hence the popularity of bitcoin ATM's.
Average Joe's who have their computers hijacked by ransomeware. The easiest way for them to buy bitcoin to get their PC's unlocked is to the use a bitcoin ATM. They don't care about the high fees since they only plan to pay one ransom.
maybe guys who's wives check their credit card statements to make sure they are not spending any money on porn. anonymous bitcoin poker is certainly driving adoption. particularly in the middle east and other religous countries where having a porn subscription on your credit card statement might land you in trouble.
Now that Coinbase customers are being investigated by the IRS and Circle.com no longer allow you to buy and sell bitcoin, I bet you will see many more online gamblers in the USA queueing up at BTMs.
Circle withdrawing their on and off ramps is unfortunate, especially at a time when online gamblers were just getting used to the idea of bitcoin. The easy integration with US bank accounts made it almost effortless to convert your dollars to bitcoin and visa versa. While bitcoin ATM's will definitely benefit from the withdrawal of Circle, I think the fees in general will be too high for many. Few serious gamblers will be willing to pay the 10% to 15% fees charged by many BTM's. I think it's more likely that online gamblers will open accounts with exchanges outside the U.S. or even use decentralised exchanges like bitsquare.
Yes, some BTM's now also offer Litecoin and Ethereum but I'm not aware of any that buy/sell Monero or Zcash. The lack of proper wallets for Monero is hampering adoption IMO.
Given that Coinbase are now reporting their US customers to the IRS maybe more people should be buying their BTC at BTM's that have less KYC/AML.
Sadly the founders of Unocoin were arrested in India after they installed some cryptocurrency exchanges....
I'm not sure what the point of BTM's are any more when you take into account that you can buy bitcoin with Cash App, Revolut, Skrill, Neteller. BTM's were useful in the past but it's so easy to buy bitcoin now there really is no need.