It is no secret that Chicago’s history is intertwined with finance. It therefore comes as little surprise that the city seems to be embracing the coming and revolution too.
Already home to proportionately large numbers of ATMs, Chicago is about to get a lot more, courtesy of Lux Vending. The decision was made to target the city based on its higher-than-average rates.
New ₿itcoin ATMs Coming to Crypto-Friendly Chicago
According to a report in , the city is about to receive an additional 30 ATMs. These will be provided by Lux Vending under the brand, Depot.
The new terminals will allow to trade physical dollars for , Ether, and other digital assets. They will join an ever-growing number of such machines in the city. However, Depot are not alone in providing ATMs to Chicago. Other startups have already setup in the area.
These include Red Leaf Chicago, who own 60 of the city’s machines. This represents 30% of their 200 machines currently operational across 21 states. Alongside Depot and Red Leaf Chicago is Athena . This startup only owns three ATMs in Chicago since it has set its sights further afield at the international market – particularly in South America, where digital assets are constantly gaining in popularity, largely through .
Despite not choosing to target the city as heavily as others have done, the CEO of Athena , Eric Gravengaard, told Chicago Business that he could see why the location was popular based on “a large degree of .”
The that Gravengaard is referring to is largely driven by Chicago’s vibrant history with the financial industry. This has helped the city embrace too. Such an embrace is particularly evidenced by the fact that local traditional exchange companies and the both launched the United States’s first futures contracts late in 2017, at the height of that year’s bull run.
Other signs of Chicago’s warming to include the large base of operations has in the city and the number of crypto-related startups from there, such as ErisX and SeedCX – both of which are developing platforms of their own.
Could ₿itcoin ATMs Drive Adoption More?
Although the proliferation of ATMs is certainly a net positive for the industry, they may not be as good for as they appear on face value. This is because of the fees they charge. Depot machines reportedly require users to pay between ten and twenty percent of the total amount of dollars they wish to exchange for . Evidently, this is a large problem and will limit the use of such machines.
ATMs are becoming more commonplace globally. Do they really drive though?
Take this, along with the fact that only 30% of Depot machines actually allow users to sell back to the terminal, and it is very difficult to see a use case for the ATMs being installed in Chicago and elsewhere around the globe. There are many other ways that are just as quick and convenient to get exposure to digital assets. It does not matter what the purpose of that exposure is – shopping online or investing – no one wants between ten and twenty percent of their purchase amount to be immediately taken to cover fees.
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Published at Tue, 29 Jan 2019 01:01:47 +0000
