Bitcoin ATM Installations Surge in Canada ? by Joon Ian Wong? on Sun, 19th Jan 2014? Companies, News, ATMs, Bitaccess, Canada, Lamassu, Robocoin
Three cities in Canada are set to have bitcoin ATMs installed in the coming weeks, making the country the top ATM location in the world. New ATMs will be installed in the Canadian capital city Ottawa as well as Montreal and financial hub Toronto.
The ATM operators are announcing their plans to install machines across the country even as Canada’s central bank issued a statement yesterday declaring bitcoin is not recognised as legal tender there.
Fadi Azouz, who operates the Montreal machine, said his ATM would be installed by 24th January at the Bitcoin Embassy in Montreal. It will take live rates from either BitStamp or the Canadian exchange Virtex and will charge a 5% for transactions. The ‘embassy’ is a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting bitcoin. Azouz said the central bank’s announcement would have no impact on his plans:
“The [statement] does not affect us at all. As long as the millions of people using bitcoin around the world continue to believe in it and trust it to be an honest method of payment, it shall continue to [be] just that.”
Azouz added that his company, Vx5 Technologies, will be installing and operating bitcoin ATMs in eight countries this year. They include Lebanon, the Philippines, Hungary and Venezuela, among others.
Azouz will not be operating a Lamassu or Robocoin machine, which are the two most well known manufacturers of bitcoin ATMs at present. Instead, he has opted for a machine built by an Ottawa company called Bitaccess. The firm calls its machines ‘BTMs‘.
Bitaccess makes a machine that converts fiat currency to bitcoin and another model that does two-way conversions. Current players Lamassu and Robocoin offer machines that convert fiat to bitcoin or two-conversions respectively.
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