Roughly 80 Vancouverites bought Bitcoin yesterday at the world's first digital currency automated teller.
Located in a Wave's coffee shop at 900 Howe Street, the Bitcoin ATM went into operation yesterday morning.
"Yesterday we had a total of 81 users and we had a lineup most of the day today as well," Mitchell Demeter, a co-founder of Bitcoiniacs, which owns the Bitcoin ATM, told Business in Vancouver.
Bitcoiniacs has operated a Bitcoin brokerage out of its office on Granville Island since June.
"We definitely knew there was a good appetite for it," Demeter said.
Bitcoiniacs has purchased four other Bitcoin ATMs, which will be rolled out in other major cities – Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal – by the end of the year.
The bitcoin ATM uses a scanner that scans a person's palm, and users are limited to maximum purchased of $3,000 per day – a measure aimed at addressing concerns that Bitcoin is ideal for money laundering, since it does not leave the same kind of paper trail as currencies.
Unlike other ATMs, which typically dispense cash, the bitcoin ATM takes cash and dispenses a code to the buyer's digital wallet. Users can then use their smartphones to buy goods or services with bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a digital currency that is not controlled by any bank or mint. It trades like a stock – a stock that has increased in value from about $20 per unit in January to $210 today – and which can be used for international transactions that avoid exchange rates and fees.
Some buyers may be trading it like stock, and since there is a fixed number that never changes – 21 million – it can never be diluted, Demeter said.
Other Bitcoin users use it for transactions with merchants, who can avoid the fees associated with credit card transactions.
Demter estimates there are more than 20 merchants in Vancouver that now accept Bitcoins as currency.
The U.S. has begun to regulate Bitcoin, whereas FINTRAC has decided it will note treat Bitcoin as a currency, which makes it easier to set up Bitcoin brokerages in Canada, Demeter said.
