Millions of Bitcoin ATMs: Coinsquare takes majority control of Just Cash
There are 5,000 Bitcoin ATMs in the world. There are more than 3.5 million regular ATMs.
Canadian cryptocurrency exchange CoinSquare has taken a controlling investment position in software provider Just Cash.
With it, CoinSquare also gets access to the Just Cash software which enables any ATM to sell cryptocurrency to customers. According to the press release, this can be accomplished by a routine software update to the ATM, without any additional hardware, without any additional investments from the ATM operator, and without customers even needing a mobile application for the transaction.
"We're excited to join forces with Coinsquare and work toward enabling millions of ATMs with our software," says Just Cash managing partner Todd Lawrence. "Coinsquare is the largest cryptocurrency company in Canada, so it made sense to leverage each other's expertise and work together to bring our solution to millions of users around the world. We believe our software will be a natural extension of Coinsquare's tremendous ecosystem."
CoinSquare CEO Cole Diamond aims to leverage the existing ATM network to move the world closer to mainstream cryptocurrency adoption.
"Right now, there is a lack of mainstream cryptocurrency adoption because most people are intimidated by the process to acquire it," he says. "By using the millions of existing ATMs around the world, we can now bridge the gap and give new users the easiest and most familiar experience to purchase cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is new and unfamiliar to many, but ATMs are not. By tapping into the existing global ATM network, cryptocurrency can finally reach the masses. We are bringing that familiar and trusted process into the cryptocurrency world, and vice versa, for the first time."
Some considerations
As of January 2019, it's believed that there were a whopping 7 Bitcoin ATMs in all of Australia. It probably doesn't help that the founder of one of Australia's primary Bitcoin ATM brands was arrested earlier this year for suspected drug trafficking.
Worldwide, there are only about 5,000 Bitcoin ATMs all up.
Meanwhile, it's estimated that there are some 3.5 million normal ATMs worldwide. There are a fraction of one percent as many cryptocurrency ATMs in the world as there are normal ATMs. And contrary to the popular perception of ATMs being on the decline, the number of ATMs per person in the world is actually increasing. So right away, you can see that the idea of being able to upgrade regular ATMs to handle cryptocurrency is a potential game changer.
Even more importantly, no additional investment is required on the part of ATM owners to upgrade their machines to handle cryptocurrency. This is important, because for the most part the startup costs on Bitcoin ATMs are high and the margins kind of suck.
One of the primary obstacles to the wider rollout of Bitcoin ATMs is the fact that in many cases they're just not a good deal for the operators.
Updating existing ATMs to do cryptocurrency is a big deal. Updating them at no cost to the current owner is a game-changer.
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Disclosure: The author holds BNB, BTC at the time of writing.
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