“South By is a pretty big deal for us,” Vance said. His bar has been booked for months for SXSW Music, but it still has slots for SXSW Interactive that he hopes to fill with the help of the new ATM. Vance, who said his bar already attracts a lot of techie customers, said he anticipates that will increase. Bitcoin is democracy’s biggest invention since the Internet.” The Lone Star State is a natural launchpad for Bitcoin, the currency of freedom and independence. “It’s a tech hub, and we’re excited to launch a month before South by Southwest.
“Austin is one of the coolest cities in the world,” he said Thursday. Jordan Kelley, CEO of Robocoin, came to Austin to help with the ATM launch. I bought a taco with Bitcoin the other day.” “A community has sprung up around it, and over the next 12 to 18 months a lot of people will learn about it. We’re trying to be the first people to make it mainstream,” Piri said.
“There’s a lot of skepticism around (Bitcoin). (The second machine will be featured on the Expo Hall floor at South by Southwest Interactive next month, Piri said.) Instead, Reza Piri, a Web developer, and his brother Mike formed a month-old Austin company called MyLocalBitcoin ATM and seem to be reaping a whirlwind of national attention after purchasing two ATMs from Robocoin. Vance didn’t have to pay for the machine, which costs $20,000 and is sold by a Las Vegas company called Robocoin. People are coming in who don’t have Bitcoins yet and signing up for the whole program and buying them.” HandleBar owner-operator Brett Vance welcomed a steady stream of early-adopters and media people to see the ATM, which was set up Wednesday, but opened for business a day later. In Austin, Bitcoin is accepted at a variety of businesses, from hair salons to food trailers to Central Texas Gun Works. It also allows those new to Bitcoin to create a “Wallet,” basically an account for using Bitcoin as currency.īitcoin, a digital “ cryptocurrency,” is quickly gaining momentum and has become something of a novelty in the tech world, inspiring fanciful knockoffs and raising many questions about how it might be regulated and whether its relative anonymity could make it disruptive in financial markets. While a similar ATM was installed in Canada last year and one that can convert Bitcoins to cash was set up in Albuquerque this week, it’s believed that HandleBar’s 800-pound machine is the first “bidirectional” Bitcoin ATM to operate in the United States. HandleBar, a downtown bar that describes itself as “Austin’s newest and only moustache bar,” made geek history on Thursday.Īt 2 p.m., a newly installed ATM that can convert cash to Bitcoins and partial Bitcoins to cash went live.
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