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First Bitcoin ATM (robocoinkiosk.com)
63 points by Pro_bity on Oct 27, 2013 | hide | past | favorite | 41 comments



I live a block away from this machine and won't be using it because of nonsense biometric data harvesting. Why do I need to scan my ID, picture and fingerprints to trade a small amount of bitcoins? I will continue to use the Russian guy who hangs out at a Robson St cafe and doesn't want my biometric data.


Wait, are you saying that there are now street bitcoin traders? This reminds of communist times when the government limited foreign currency trading. There was a specific coffee house where you could go and illicitly trade foreign currency.


Indeed there are! Here's a short Wired article I saw about the concept a few months back: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/07/buttonwood/

One of my clients actually said to me, at the closing of a project: "I don't know if you take bit coins, but I'm gonna go see my bitcoin guy in a few. I don't like to buy online. Anyway, if you want to be paid in bit coins, let me know! Otherwise I'll drop the check in the mail tomorrow."

(that's paraphrased a bit, as I cannot remember the exact wording, but the meat of the quote is the same.)


Of course. see e.g. https://localbitcoins.com


I can't help but think on how that reflects on current government.


I'll even just go to LocalBitcoins if I want the anonymity (at a premium, but that's a cost of doing business without a fully FINRA-compliant broker, of course LBC is a marketplace so it has no business being compliant).

And if I don't want the anonymity premium these guys make it sound like it's difficult to do instant trades... Meanwhile I've got Coinbase on Instant Trade up to 10 BTC per day, and other exchanges have similar options (if you choose to verify with ID/Bank Info/etc).


> Why do I need to scan my ID, picture and fingerprints

You don't, this one just scans your palm, which seems a lot easier than the runaround necessary to create an online account anywhere.

Since there are no 'palm databases' linking your palm to your identity, seems pretty anonymous too. It is only to ostensibly prevent any one user from going over the daily transaction limit. (As an aside I personally don't see anonymity as a big issue most of the time anyway).


I think this is like the second or third "first" ATM, though.


Yup. For example, the Internet Archive in SF launched what they call a bitcoin ATM back in March. [1] [2]

[1] http://blog.archive.org/2013/03/05/bitcoin-to-cash-converter...

[2] http://blog.archive.org/2013/04/03/how-the-internet-archive-...


That is pretty awesome, although, I believe "an honor-based converter box" is a far cry from an ATM.


Just got this error when hitting the site. I guess node isn't the end-all-be-all magic bullet for scalability everyone thinks it is?

    Error: EMFILE, too many open files '/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/views/index.html'
        at Object.fs.openSync (fs.js:427:18)
        at fs.readFileSync (fs.js:284:15)
        at View.exports.renderFile [as engine] (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/ejs/lib/ejs.js:312:9)
        at View.render (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/view.js:75:8)
        at Function.app.render (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/application.js:504:10)
        at ServerResponse.res.render (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/response.js:753:7)
        at exports.index (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/routes/index.js:8:9)
        at callbacks (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:161:37)
        at param (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:135:11)
        at pass (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:142:5)


Acting like this site is proof that node doesn't scale is just plain silly.


This error isn't from node rather the OS has a limit on the number of files than can be open at once. The same limit would apply for another language/stack


too many open files, Ubuntu has default /proc/sys/fs/file-max of 1024.

It's an SA problem, not dev problem.


If SA and dev had a great cooperation from an early point, the developer would have told the SA about the platform requirements.


Error: EMFILE, too many open files '/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/views/index.html' at Object.fs.openSync (fs.js:427:18) at fs.readFileSync (fs.js:284:15) at View.exports.renderFile [as engine] (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/ejs/lib/ejs.js:312:9) at View.render (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/view.js:75:8) at Function.app.render (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/application.js:504:10) at ServerResponse.res.render (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/response.js:753:7) at exports.index (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/routes/index.js:8:9) at callbacks (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:161:37) at param (/home/ubuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:135:11) at pss (/home/ubtuntu/robocoin/robocoin-website/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:142:5)

Idiots.......


> too many open files

I thought nodejs magically webscales ? /sarcasm

sidenote : please ditch this horrible unreadable font in the text body.that's fine for a few headers but , Swap it with the serif font you are using in the subtitles.


Probably just hitting the fd-per-process ulimit


readFileSync ... not good not good .... nodejs is sexier async ;)


node.js is sexier when it doesn't serve stacktraces in production. Plus async files reads still happen in an internal threadpool (one thread per core, hardcoded, IIRC) so it's pretty easy to saturate that anyway, you should be caching static assets.


The express framework activates the view cache by default when configured for production, so both problems are actually the same.


I suspect it's not configured for prod, since I'm seeing a stacktrace


you are right but I'll still use async over sync anytime... :)


You will often prefer to use sync for one-time loads or for debugging.


While I'm happy to see the world's first anything happen in my hometown of Vancouver, I do question why Vancouver was chosen over San Fran, Portland or New York. Those cities seem more fit for World's First. Even if its a Canadian market they are targeting, Toronto is our financial centre and would make a better choice for this currency.


Perhaps because San Fran, Portland and New York are in the US, which has more onerous regulations.


I think it's as simple as their first (operational) customer happens to be based in Vancouver.


Yup, the ATM is being operated by a Vancouver Bitcoin store called http://www.bitcoiniacs.com


"FINTRAC told LibertyBit in an email that it was not considered a Money Service Business, which would require registering with FINTRAC. The agency told LibertyBit that since the transfer of funds is a corollary of its actual service of trading virtual currency, it need not register."

tl;dr: Less regulatory burden in Canada.

(Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2039347/canadian-regulator-ta...)


Why is this machine always asking for the users fingerprints? Doesn't that break the anonymity of bitcoin?


My understanding is that it's to comply with money-laundering laws. They limit the size of the transaction per-day and per-person.

I haven't bought bitcoins (online or through an ATM), but it seems any purchase of bitcoins from any electronic money transfer would have the same issue of breaking anonymity. I suppose there are ways to anonymize the funds once you have them.


This is it really. There's a limit to the amount of cash they can do per person per day, and this is a way to ensure people don't go over the limit.


It doesn't seem like the scanner is required for these machines and it does so using palm-vein scanning, not fingerprints. They are doing so to prevent any single user from withdrawing over a legal limit in a day.

"If enabled, the Palm Vein Scanner can limit a user's daily transaction amount by taking a unique, anonymous (no fingerprints) infrared picture of a customer's blood vessels to assist in AML compliance."


It's difficult to argue that information which is specifically used to uniquely identify you is "anonymous".


What anonymity of Bitcoin? Nothing in the design of Bitcoin protects anonymity, nor is it a clearly stated security goal.


I think they are trying to avoid fraud. Since they seem to be limiting to amount you can withdraw, they probably need some way to authenticate you.


Not to mention that that is associated with a government ID and a photo. Why not just use a bank account...?


A couple guys at DEF CON this past year brought a coin-operated Bitcoin converter -- US currency goes in, QR codes full of crypto come out.

I'm holding onto my souvenir bitcoin (worth $0.25 at time of transaction) as long as I can.


In January or February a group in New Hampshire showed off a Bitcoin ATM for US Dollars, though I don't think it was ready for full scale production. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57570925-38/need-bitcoins-...

Looks like they've since updated and now have one that accepts notes from over 200 countries: https://lamassu.is/


As the popularity of bitcoin continues to grow, I think bitcoin owners will appreciate the degree of liquidity this offers. The bitcoin ecosystem needs something like this.


All I see is > The connection was interrupted. Just like real ATM ^_^




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