“The world’s first bitcoin ATM opened Tuesday in Vancouver, Canada, dispensing hard money in exchange for the anonymous crypto-currency through a palm-scan security system.
The automated teller is set up in downtown Vancouver at Waves Coffee House, making it the first of five ATMs bought by Canadian firm Bitcoiniacs from Nevada-based producer Robocoin.
“I think [bitcoins have] the potential to be revolutionary,” Mitchell Demeter, founder of Bitcoiniacs and co-owner of Robocoin, told RT.
The machines will exchange bitcoins for Canadian dollars via Canada’s VirtEx exchange. The transactions themselves will be anonymous, the vendor says, but clients will have to identify themselves via a palm scanner first.
Demeter said the anonymous nature of bitcoins should not scare those reticent to trust the currency’s validity.
A user is instructed on how to scan his palm using scanning identification to ensure that a single user cannot exchange more than $1,000 in a single day day on the world’s first bitcoin ATM at Waves Coffee House on October 29, 2013 in Vancouver, British Columbia (AFP Photo / David Ryder)
“It’s said to be anonymous, but it isn’t really,” he explained. “Every transaction you make is recorded on a public ledger. Your name isn’t attached to it, but if somebody wants to find out who is making that transaction, it can be done.”
This is done to enforce Canadian anti-money laundering laws……”
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