Bitcoin ATM
Josh Harvey, co-founder of Lamassu, showed off the first bitcoin dispenser at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show and has found quite a bit of interest for the $5,000 machines.
The machine, designed and manufactured in Portugal, looks like a typical deli ATM — but functions more like a vending machine. You put in US dollars and receive bitcoins back on your phone.
Presto, the machine sends bitcoins to the phone.
Brooklyn native Willard Ling, 30, is set to introduce the first bitcoin ATM to New York City.
After scouting locations, he has chosen the East Village bubble tea shop Just Sweet, on 3rd Avenue and 12th Street. He is now in talks with the owners on a rent deal.
State regulators with the Department of Financial Services are expected to hold hearings later this month to discuss bitcoin and how it should be regulated.
Until rules are drawn up, Ling’s Bitcoin ATM will sit in his apartment.
He thinks New York should get on with it if it wants to still be considered a center of finance.
Ling got into bitcoin around two-and-a half years ago, when the price was around $10. It closed last week at $834.50.
“I knew it would go up tenfold, just not as quickly as it did,” Ling said.
http://nypost.com/2014/01/12/first-bitcoin-atm-to-debut-in-nyc/
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