Coinsource ATMs take an 11 percent fee on any transaction. So that consumers know what they’re getting, Muhney said the company doesn’t try to make money off a spread, or the difference between the prices at which Coinsource buys and sells BTC. (It’s a transparency-boosting move that Square’s Cash App recently undertook as well.)
Coinsource, a well-known bitcoin ATM company, purchased a booth at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Given increased interest from the IRS in bitcoin ATMs, we were especially curious about how users reacted when Coinsource increased its know-your-customer (KYC) requirements.
«Our compliance department is actually the largest department in our entire company,» Coinsource’s Derek Muhney told CoinDesk in the video above. Money-laundering concerns have long dogged the bitcoin ATM sector.
Muhney said Coinsource moved to require KYC of everyone two years ago, though the company had always required it for transactions over $800.
«We received little to no customer feedback about the change,» Muhney said.
At the show, Coinsource was demoing one of its buy-only machines, where a user can use cash to buy bitcoin. The company also has machines that will dispense cash in exchange for bitcoin.
Coinsource is currently only offering bitcoin but Muhney said its software has been built to handle more cryptocurrencies. The company currently has more than 400 bitcoin ATMs deployed in 42 states.
“We really wanted to show off the fact that bitcoin adoption is on the rise”, Muhney said of his company’s presence at CES 2020. “The footprint of bitcoin ATMs on a global scale just continues to grow and grow.”
As for reactions from people on the floor, Muhney said that booth visitors were “excited to see that it’s become so mainstream that they’re seeing it at the Consumer Electronics Show.»
Why Bitcoin Tumbled Below $8K
Bitcoin prices briefly slipped below $8,000 each on Thursday for the first time in three months, though the cryptocurrency is still more than double its level at the start of 2019.
What do these bold – and volatile – moves mean for the ecosystem?
David Nage, principal at the Los Angeles-based money manager Arca Funds, discusses his views on this week’s price drop and whether price volatility in cryptocurrencies might turn off big investors.
Nage, who saw bitcoin’s price to be artificially range bound until this correction stated:
With bitcoin, where there’s potentially a drop, obviously you can see it as a potential to buy.
Nage believes that as an asset bitcoin is akin to future-pointing equities like Netflix and Amazon. “We’re not in the business of price predictions”, said Nage.
If supply continues to get cut in half and the demand continues to rise, classical economics shows the price increases.
Catalysts for price action
And while the BTC’s halving set for release on May 15, 2020 is potentially bullish, both the technical and fundamental views point toward uncertain times ahead for BTC’s direction after its recent sell-off threw into question the long-term trend.
Soravis Srinawakoon Co-Founder and CEO of Band Protocol said:
Looking at the technical chart of Bitcoin, we’ve been seeing a squeeze in a descending triangle of the Bitcoin price in the past few days combined with the recent disappointing launch of Bakkt it is clear there is an overall negative macro sentiment in the market.
Band Protocol connects smart contracts with trusted off-chain information, provided through community-curated data providers.