By
Temitope Olatunji
April 26th, 2024
The massive potential of crypto-enabled financial services for customers with relatively low income is wide-ranging, especially with the present collaboration that unites Walmart, Coinme, and MoneyGram.
Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT) has been silently placing Bitcoin ATMs in stores for its customers to use. Using Coinstar machines in the huge Walmart stores in the United States shoppers can purchase Bitcoins using cash.
The services are confirmed, with customers being able to buy small amounts of BTC in the stores. Molly Blakeman, Walmart communications director said in a mail that Coinstar, in collaboration with Coinme, has inaugurated a pilot that enables customers to buy Bitcoin using cash. In the same mail, it was given that around 200 Coinstar kiosks are placed inside Coinstar kiosks.
The company Coinstar is well known for its easy transactions of cryptocurrencies with paper money. However, the capability to purchase Bitcoin is supported by Coinme, a crypto wallet, and payment company that has expertise in Bitcoin ATMs.
On positioning the bills into the machine, a paper voucher is generated. Consequently, one is allowed to set up a Coinme account and provide a Know-Your-Customer(KYC) check prior to the voucher being retrieved. The ATM charges a four% fee for the Bitcoin option, added to another seven percent cash exchange fee.
The ATMs for digitized tokens are on the rise, with the industry partially being boosted by the pandemic. Coinstar disclosed its plans to double the number of Coinme BTMs( Bitcoin ATMs) in 2020 after a high rise in usage. Quite recently, Coinstar added another 300 Bitcoin-enabled machines at Winn-Dixie, Fresco y Mas, Harveys, and other grocery stores all over Florida.
The massive potential of crypto-enabled financial services for customers with relatively low income is wide-ranging, especially with the present collaboration including Walmart, Coinme, and MoneyGram.
According to Seth Sattler who is the compliance director of DigitalMint, while the immense scale of BTM production can boost crypto adoption around the world, there have been instances of money laundering. This is due to the many crypto ATM owners who are ignorant of the advanced level of illegal activities these machines bring along.
In the last 18 months or so, DigitalMint, which is a BTM provider, has denied and returned around $5 Million to fraud victims, added Sattler. He will be a top contributor to the recently convened Cryptocurrecny Compliance Cooperative.