Jorge Farias, the CEO of Cryptobuyer, a company that “helps people in countries with high levels of hyperinflation” by providing them with convenient access to crypto ATMs, has revealed that the first ever Bitcoin (BTC) ATM has arrived in Venezuela.
Farias, who is also the co-founder of PanaFintech, a Panama-based firm that offers educational courses on “financial innovation”, said during an interview with Union Radio:
We are going to install the first cryptocurrency ATM in Venezuela over the course of the next two weeks.
Bitcoin ATM In Its “Final Test Stage”
Farias also mentioned that the Bitcoin ATM (BTM) had already been physically installed in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital city. He added that the installation process was “in its final test stage” and his firm, CryptoBuyer, would be announcing the official launch of the BTM on social media networks.
Cryptobuyer has previously set up five BTMs in Panama city and the company serves as a merchant acceptance platform for bitcoin, litecoin (LTC), and dash (DASH) payments. As CryptoGlobe reported in May 2018, there were 3,028 BTMs worldwide, according to Coin ATM Radar. This number has grown considerably as the BTM tracking website shows there are now 4,195 BTMs throughout the world.
These BTMs are located in 76 different countries and are managed by 526 organizations. Crypto analytics firm, Data Light reported in December 2018 that an average of 6 digital currency ATMs were installed per day in 2018.
Coinme, Coinstar Partner To Make Buying Bitcoin Easier
Data Light also found that nearly all the BTMs supported bitcoin (BTC) and over half of them support litecoin. Nearly 2,000 support Ethereum’s native token, ether (ETH) and many of the BTMs support bitcoin cash (BCH). Privacy-focused coins such as monero (XMR), dash, and zcash (ZEC) are supported by some BTMs as well.
As covered on CryptoGlobe, Coinme, a US-based licensed BTM operator, and Coinstar, a company that manages about 20,000 fully-automated self-service coin-counting kiosks worldwide, announced they would partner to allow users to buy BTC with fiat money (USD).
Bitcoin can be bought “at participating retailers that have Coinstar kiosks enabled for the Coinme product”, Coinme’s website explains. However, only paper money (and not coins) can be used to purchase BTC from these kiosks. Currently, Coinstar operates hundreds of kiosks in eleven US states including Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Washington.
