I have written about bitcoin, or any other cryptocurrency, in a while simply because I see them all as less than honorable. When the NSA teams up with MIT to develop a technology and then it suddenly appears on Halloween by a “person” that no one has ever seen and there is zero history, photos or any information about “his life”, well, paint-me-skeptical but it just leaves a lot of room for questions.
Thanks to Louis, smaulgld, we learned about this little jewel and thought you would be interested to see what’s happening in the world of bitcoin. Personally, I have only used CoinStar once and will never use it again as the fees are entirely too high. However, we find this as an interesting idea and a seemingly good fit for the expansion of CoinStar and their business model. Offer bitcoin.
Does this mean people will begin exchanging their “penny jar” for bitcoin? Is this a way to dip your toe in the pool or diverse a portfolio without having to use funds that were earmarked for, say, groceries, gas for the car or some other necessity? Yep, that’s exactly the idea.
Coin cashing giant, Coinstar, has announced that they will now be offering its users an option to buy Bitcoins from loose change instead of converting them to cash. The company has partnered with cryptocurrency startup Coinme, to make this possible.
Coinme is the largest Bitcoin ATM operator in the United States. It was founded in 2014, and currently handles millions worth of transactions every month.
Coinstar operates more than 20,000 Kiosks in the convenience store across North America and Europe. The Kiosks allow for the changing of coins to paper cash. Their service is popular across all USA, where more than 50,000 people exchange their coins through Coinstar daily. Source – BlockManity
Will this help introduce bitcoin, or cryptocurrencies in general, to a whole new segment or will it make it easier for people to actually use their bitcoin? Not sure exactly what the goal is with this marriage, but it seems like CoinStar is now positioning themselves to be on the leading edge of “exchanges” for bitcoin transactions, and probably other cryptocurrencies in the future. The good news for CoinStar is once the technology is developed the cost to handle bitcoin will be minimal, just like the cost to maintain their current coin exchange stations.
