The association between the companies was made officially last week. DiarioBitcoin exclusively interviewed Jhon Alexander Narváez, director and principal partner of Bitco, who explained more details about commercial integration and made a brief demonstration illustrating the operation of the new device.
Bitco, the company that brought the first Bitcoin ATM to the city of Bogotá, carried out the installation of another unit at the Portobello Design Center, located in the vicinity of the 93 park north of the Colombian capital, which has been manufactured by Athe Na and allows the purchase and sale of balances in Criptomonedas in an easy and simple way.
Unlike the first cashier installed in the offices of Francicentro Mall – which is in race 15 with Street # 104 – 76-, this new device has dual functionality, as the first ATM managed by the company and designed by General bytes only allowed the purchase of Criptomonedas (Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum).
Originally this device was presented by Bitco during LaBitConf 2017 – an event that was held in the city during the 4th and 5th of December-, a space in which the commercial alliance with Athena was also announced for the first time for the placement and installation of devices by the year 2018.
A commercial integration
To learn more about this trade alliance and the ATM installation, DiarioBitcoin interviewed Jhon Alexander Narváez, senior manager and partner at Bitco.
Jhon Alexander Narváez, director and principal partner of Bitco, now representative of Athena
– How did this trade alliance between BITCO and Athena take place?, how long do they have to operate jointly?
Since last October, Athena has been in talks with Bitco just to look for a commercial integration, in order to bring more equipment to the country and to provide citizens the opportunity to acquire Bitcoin in a practical and simple way. Commercial integration was recently formalized, so Athena joined Bitco and from now on we operate with the ATM creator company. We are currently in the process of winding up Bitco and will soon be moving to a larger and better-equipped venue.
– Now that you have partnered with Athena, what are the plans of the company in Colombian territory?
Within the framework of the expansion plan that Athena is planning to carry out, it is being programmed to bring a large quantity of BTC ATMs and install them in strategic points of the city. Based on the results obtained in this deployment, the decision will be taken to carry out the installation of equipment in other cities of the country. Beyond the plans in Colombia, Athena is making similar partnerships in Argentina and Peru, and will soon be evaluating to take their operations to Chile to install devices in the country.
– In relation to the cashier how many Criptomonedas do you currently operate?, how is the price of the assets calculated in the buying/selling activities?, what is the margin of commissions handled by the company?
At the moment the cashier only supports commercial activities with Bitcoin, but starting next week users will be able to use the device to buy and sell Litecoin balances. In the following weeks, other Criptomonedas will be incorporated to expand the range of commercial operations for customers. Originally in the ATM of General bytes operated with Bitstamp as supplier of the traded balances, but currently we established agreements with the Buda.com team for the marketing of the Criptomonedas. The prices arranged for the purchase/sale are directly extracted from the commercial platform and Athena charges the user with 10% commissions. We explain to customers that while the margin is high, this is because they are working with a transparent company that is accountable to the respective authorities, providing users with a mechanism to buy Bitcoin balances safely Without having to deal with deceptive offers or pyramid schemes. However, to the extent that more ATMs are being installed in the city, the Commission margins managed by Athena are going to be reduced.
– How have they managed in relation to the ambivalent position of the Colombian authorities regarding the marketing of digital currencies?
Athena has arranged a group of lawyers who have covered all aspects associated with the legal principles for the installation of machines and commercial operations with Criptomonedas. But at a closer level, the company manages a principle of self-regulation, in which we adopt a series of measures to ensure that the devices are not used for activities related to money laundering.
Among the measures that we have arranged are the following:
Identification data is requested from the user and the amount of the same will depend on the volume of money with which you want to trade.
The device takes photos of the user while carrying out its business operations.
The cashier generates receipts for each purchase/sale made.
Limits have been set for digital currency trading, which is equivalent to 4 million Colombian pesos per month.
– Does operating with Bitcoin have not generated problems for customers due to transaction times?
Users who trade with Bitcoin usually have no drawbacks and receive their money or their digital assets at the moment. This is possible because Athena processes the operations since they are registered in the Blockchain without having to carry out any confirmation. In addition, the company gathers the whole set of transfers requested by all its ATMs in the world and tries to group them to fill a block of data, so it would not have to wait for the transactions to be included one by one by the miners of the network , guaranteeing greater speed when sending the assets to the respective purses.
Operation of the Athena cashier
Before you start using the cashier, it is important that the user has a smartphone with a digital purse installed to send or receive the corresponding assets. The minimum amount to carry out commercial operations is 20,000 Colombian pesos (approximately USD $7).
To better illustrate the operation of the cashier, Narváez proceeded to carry out the process of selling Bitcoin balances through the device, following the following steps:
As a first step, the commercial operation to be carried out must be indicated on the display. Both for the purchase and for the sale you have to select the margin of money that we want to invest. In the upper right equine, the associated costs for commercial operations are indicated through the cashier.
Once the amount is indicated, the cashier requires the user to enter his/her phone number to send a verification message. If not received, inform the phone number on the screen. If the user has not previously performed operations, the device will request some identification data depending on the margin of money with which it is intended to trade.
Once the telephone number is registered, the user is informed of the terms and conditions of use, which he must accept to continue the operation
The following screen asks for the confirmation code that the company sent for the courier service
Since a sales process is being carried out, the following screen contains some balances within the limits selected at the beginning of the operation by the user, so you must select the amount you want to obtain product from the Commercial activity to make or enter the specific amount in case this does not appear among the options arranged.
indicated the amount, the cashier informs us of the equivalent amount of BTC balances that we must transfer and shows an address and a QR code associated with which to send the respective assets
Once the transaction is made the cashier informs the user that it has been processed, so proceed to generate a receipt and cash dispense the corresponding balance.
The Athena cashier will be serving Monday through Saturday between 8:00am and 12:00 pm, while Sundays and holidays will be operational from 10:00 AM to 11:00 pm.
By the way, Athena also operates ATMs in the USA. Also, Bitco helped Athena bring the cashier that was exhibited at LaBitConf2017
Article by Ángel Di Matteo for DiarioBitcoin
Photos of Ángel Di Matteo