Greetings, In the past month I have been researching the possibility of buying a BTC ATM. There are about a dozen machines on the market ranging from $3,000 to $12,000, including shipping. The major differences between the machines is the ability to buy and sell, some machines only allow customers to buy while others allow they customer to buy and sell coins. Another difference is some have the ability to exchange multiple alt-coins along with BTC including ltc, doge. Below are several of the more popular models:
I have used the Satoshi2 on multiple occasions and it is very convenient and easy to use. This would be my machine of choice at the current moment. It has an ID scanner which allows the user to easily produce their personal info which is mandatory for exchanges over $500. It also has a QR code scanner which is very useful considering the length of wallet keys and possibility of misprinting. Repeat users only need to provide ID for the first exchange and all subsequent exchanges are just a matter of putting in the money and hitting a couple buttons.
The profit is made through a buy/sell spread as well as an exchange fee which typically ranges from 8-19%. For the satoshi2 the standard fee is 18% for exchanges under $1,000 , 14% for exchanges between 2-$3,000 and for exchanges over $3,000 the standard fee is 10%.
When deciding whether operating an atm is right for you it is also important to decide where you will put they atm. It is important to place the machine in an area that gets a lot of traffic, the more the better. You also don't want to set yours up close to another machine which will compete for your customers. One of the main reasons for me wanting to operate a btc atm is that there is no other machines in the Whole state of Ri and in fact the closest machine is all the way in Boston over an hour across the state boarder and hours away from the capital city Providence, Ri which is where I would set up my machine. It is almost directly in the middle of the state and has the densest population of all other towns in Ri. Due to the small size of RI this one machine could service the whole state!
Unless you own your own public business your best bet is to rent a small space in a high traffic convenience store or gas station. From my research I have determined that it costs around 3-$500 a month to rent an ATM size space in a storefront. Studies have shown that placing a BTC ATM in a convenience store can increase traffic up to 10-30% which is something you should use as leverage when negotiating the rental fee with the store owner. Rental space will be your main operational cost along with an optional $100 a month support fee which will act as customer service and offer help to customers walking them through the process if necessary. Other than this really the only major decisions left to make is what kind of licensing you may need to operate in your state. From what I have seen some are licensed and others are not. I think one of the factors on whether you should be licensed or not is if your machine is a BTC atm or a BTC vending machine. This may sound like semantics and it really is but it may be beneficial to call it a BTC vending machine instead of an ATM. This will differ from state to state and is something you will need to research. Anyway I wanted to write this to share some of my ideas and maybe start a dialog with any of my readers who may have experience owning a btc atm or are interested in owning one. As well as to put my ideas on paper which always helps me while doing research on a topic. I will give updates in the near future if I decide to go ahead and act on these plans. Please like and share.. Thank you!!!
