Hey Hive Fam!
I’ve been following Coinme for a long time as I got to see them present at a Seattle crypto conference last year and I’m excited to finally have them on the show.
Today I sit down with Neil Bergquist, the CEO of Coinme to learn more about how they are increasing Bitcoin accessibility with their unique ATM model.
Instead of installing their own ATM machines around the country, the have instead partnered with Coinstar to enable Bitcoin transactions within their currently existing kiosks. You’ve mostly likely seen a Coinstar machine at your local grocery store - which is a machine that allows you to turn all of your loose change into dollars. Now, users can choose to turn that into Bitcoin instead.
Currently, Coinme has partnered with over 4,000 Coinstar machines around the country - and they are just getting started. Coinstar has over 20,000 kiosks around the world.
Neil shares his thoughts on how ATM’s are an important entry point for our industry as it helps give a physical aspect to what people view as “magic internet money” where they are able to physically go somewhere to buy Bitcoin and even have a 1-800 customer service number they can call with questions.
For this reason, the Coinme wallet is custodial so that they have more power to help these new users transition into the space. Their customer service team really focuses on bitcoin education and helps their customers to get more comfortable with taking more control of their own funds.
We also have a great discussion about the power of creating more visual awareness of bitcoin. The fact that people are seeing Bitcoin branding in their local grocery store is of huge value to our industry.
Also, I want to apologize that my audio isn’t as clear as usual. My mic had some issues during this recording and so I had to use my backup audio which isn’t quite as good! Thanks for understanding. 🙏🏼
🔗 Guest Links:
https://twitter.com/Coinme
https://twitter.com/neilbergquist
XO, Lea
▶️ 3Speak