Coinstar, a coin counting kiosk maker that houses 3.500 Coinme bitcoin ATMs, is looking to double its bitcoin-compatible supermarket machines. The doubling would happen "within a year," said Vice President of Product Michael Jack.
He said that the growth of ATM bitcoin Coinme "both by location and overall basis has been very strong." The company already plans to link Coinme's exchange API to multiple kiosks, although Jack has not specified how soon this would happen.
A positive turn during the pandemic
Coinstar has a global offering of nearly 20.000 kiosks, according to its website. These announcements come as Coinme claims to have reached a true milestone in the COVID-19 era: it is attracting new ones Investors, while other companies suffer from the effects of the pandemic.
Coinme CEO Neil Bergquist said that 40% of transactions since the end of February are from beginners. One of the reasons for the rise could be the positioning of ATM bitcoin Coinme almost exclusively in supermarkets and pharmacies, almost the only physical establishments that have remained open to consumer traffic despite the COVID-19 blocks.
While panicked shoppers flocked to grocery stores in mid-March to stockpile, some were apparently also charging with cryptocurrencies: the volume of bitcoin transactions in Coinme kiosks has increased by 40% since late February.
Coinme also saw a "slight increase" in $ 1.200 transactions - the same dollar amount as the fiscal stimulus for coronavirus sent to the Americans by the Treasury Department - "although we are not seeing a strong correlation," Bergquist said.
"The recent increase in sales has certainly helped to eliminate any concern about the company's performance and durability during the pandemic," said Bergquist.
Cash injection in Latin America
The news follows Thursday's Coinme announcement that it had raised $ 10 million in Serie A funding from Coinstar, Blockchain.com Ventures, Hard Yaka, Nima Capital and Pantera Capital, who spearheaded the collection with $ 5,5 million.
Pantera now controls a seat on Coinme's board of directors. "People are not there yet in terms of education, people are not there in terms of technology," said Pantera partner Paul Veradittakit.
"This is the way to attract the mainstream user, the general public, the people who go to the grocery stores" to buy bitcoins. Bergquist said Coinme will use cash to expand its business in Latin America.
Since Coinme can work through the exchange API instead of a real machine, it can link the purchase of bitcoins to any compatible device: "kiosks, ATMs, [stores] and merchants" in Latin American countries, Bergquist said . "They want to be the backend, they want to be the pipes to move money around the world in a much simpler way," said Veradittakit.
