I used to joke with my mom about coinstar machines. We used to pull out change from the couch cushions or in those pockets behind car seats and put them into coinstar machines and say "Bitcoins!"
Holy smokes, it's actually a reality. Coinstar now sells Bitcoin (CoinMe associated). This is really cool. Now I used to use coinbase for a while, up until Bank of America stopped allowing the use of debit card purchases on there... worse still, I can't get my bank account linked because BofA now rejects verification deposits... so basically coinbase is a no-go for me and sadly thousands of others.
Enter coinstar. These machines used to only turn your change into dollars via a voucher that you would take to your cashier. Simple stuff like that see? Low and behold, these machines now let you buy Bitcoins. They aren't selling you their own private stock of coin, this machine acts as a middleman which you pay cash to, it gives you a voucher with a code, and when you punch this code into the account (the account you create with THEM), it buys the coins from an exchange for you and deposits them into a web wallet. From there, you can send it to a private wallet.
I like this because these machines are literally everywhere already. I walked into the grocery one day and saw it and thought, holy smokes the public are finally getting this shoved in front of their eyes as they walk in! Mass adoption? ;D
It's easy to use... but please please please create an account with them before you buy the coins!!! Yes, it requires phone/id/photo, and you always have that slim chance that you won't get verification... and you'll be stuck with a paper voucher with your code that you can't use anywhere. So get your account going first before making your first purchase.
This is a welcome turn of events mind you. Yes people are identifying themselves to the Govt by making these accounts, however this is one of those "omega fats" (the good fats) of regulation. It is necessary in order to help make these machines public accessible in places like a grocery store where true regular joes who know nothing about Bitcoins, can actually now buy them. Don't worry you're not gonna get flagged as a tax target for buying coins this way. If you're really hell bent on hiding your values, send your coins to an exchange, then to a private wallet.
Well, get ready folks. There will come a time when people are going to have to pay dollars to get pennies worth of BTC, all to dump their useless paper money. Don't let that be you. Buying today guarantees you will be ahead of the game.
-One last thing to note is that there are fees with these machines. I personally don't mind, especially since I first started using the machine when it was in the 7k range (and I simply couldn't wait for coinbase… which btw still is broken for me) so this machine, despite the fees, saved me major headaches of buying before it hit 10k+ count your blessings.
