After the startling revelations of what Sam Bankman-Fried and his accomplices were up to, investors and crypto enthusiasts are finding better places to invest their money - one of them are Bitcoin ATMs.
The year 2021 was a glorious one for the crypto community. Bitcoin had reached its (unbelievable now) all-time high and it seemed as if nothing could push back the growth of the cryptocurrency bubble, but then along came December, and slowly but surely things changed. Winter had come, and with it the bear market. It hadn’t taken long to figure out that the hype and dreams for crypto couldn’t match the reality of what the world was ready for and as Bitcoin fell in value along with everything else, 2022 arrived and so did soaring oil and gas prices, a new war in Europe and a looming economic recession, which had an impact on all the markets.
In addition, no-one saw the coming disaster of Luna, a coin in many people’s portfolios, and what would happen to various crypto businesses like Three Arrows Capital, Voyager Digital and Celcius Network. Unfortunately, just when it seemed as if things might slowly get better from the summer of 2022 onwards, FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried, its CEO, hit mainstream news on November 6 and blew the doors wide open.
An online cryptocurrency exchange, like Binance, FTX which had garnered massive support and investment from American politicians, investment companies and even celebrities (Tom Brady and Kevin O’Leary, here’s looking at you). It had gotten so big, a huge sports stadium had been named after it. Little did the investors and clients of FTX know that behind the scenes their money was being used to make risky trades and, to make matters worse, there wasn’t a compliance officer or accountant in sight. Sam Bankman Fried, worth around 26 billion dollars at the time, was essentially doing whatever he wanted while some media outlets were insinuating he was the next Warren Buffet, a world renowned and respected investor.
Incidentally there were those who tried to warn us about Bankman-Fried - some U.S. congressmen and even popular influencers such as Bitboy Crypto led the charge against the malpractice and downright criminality which was occurring daily on the FTX exchange, but to no avail.
It took Binance, the number one leading cryptocurrency exchange, to expose FTX for all it was worth, which wasn’t much if anyone cared to inspect their books. Panic set in, and FTX’s native token, FTT, began being sold en masse and customers began transferring their assets off the exchange. In less than a day, FTX had suspended all withdrawals and a crisis was announced by Sam on his Twitter account, which he often liked to use to challenge other people’s assertions about him and his company. This time, though, was different. He was asking for help.
He wanted a bail-out, a buy-out, whatever it took to raise the capital to save his skin, but it didn’t come and now, almost on a daily basis, shocking details are being released about what was really going on behind-the-scenes of this crypto exchange. There were even rumours popping up, such as the one, now discredited, that the Ukrainian government, which had raised over $60 million from public donations for the war against Russia by partnering with FTX, had laundered money and sent some of these funds to the U.S. Democratic Party.
It seems only natural to believe that we will be hearing more such theories around Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX for quite some time. If you want to find out more about what influences the crypto prices in Ukraine at Bitcoin ATMs, click on this link.
For all its uses, no-one suspected the prices of these coins could ever go this low and with the FTX collapse, many have discovered that these exchanges were maybe not the best place to keep their money on, especially their crypto. Firstly, exchanges require every one of their users to open an account with them and verify their identity, which is the antithesis of what Bitcoin was created for. By tracking their users, exchanges are amassing a lot of information and this data could eventually be sold or possibly stolen.
Leaks have also occurred even at the company Ledger (producer of the popular cold wallet) and to this day their users get emails from random senders. Security really is the name of the game here, and it would be good if the importance of anonymity becomes more recognised by more users of blockchain technologies. For investors who want to put their crypto onto wallets anonymously, these ATMs are a huge bonus, and at little to no cost.
Next, we have the problem of fees - yes, the thing that gives exchanges their profits. Wouldn’t it be better if we could circumnavigate these things and buy your crypto without paying for such a service? Well, this is where Bitcoin or Crypto ATMs come in. What these ATM companies don’t do, unlike exchanges, is ask for your ID from the very start, and their transaction fees can match or sometimes better what the exchanges charge. For example, in Europe, Shitcoins.club (the largest Bitcoin ATM network there), offer possibly the best fees and even have offers where you can get extra crypto or cash, depending on the type of transactions you’re making.
Investors have lost trust in exchanges from this FTX scandal, and physical booths containing Bitcoin ATMs where you can go inside and safely exchange cash for Bitcoin, Ethereum, or USDT (Tether) reassures crypto enthusiasts that perhaps not everything needs to be virtually done. Satoshi’s vision of a transparent and private electronic cash system sent peer-to-peer (without any need for a trusted third party) means beginners and more experienced users can easily transfer funds around the blockchain, without ever logging in online. Thus, Bitcoin ATMs benefits users and are in keeping with the rebel mentality that originally fueled the creation of Bitcoin.
What the author also likes about these devices is that it’s difficult for its transactions to go wrong but, if something were to happen, all the client needs to do is call the 24 hour support line and talk to a customer service agent. If you think that cryptocurrency exchanges feel robotic and almost automated, with Bitcoin ATMs, people’s requests are dealt with efficiently and quickly, bringing a much needed touch of humanity to the world of crypto marketplace.
Now, due to the fallout that is happening from FTX’s failures and the resulting loss of investment capital into the crypto space as a whole, the market is once again suffering, and it now seems that regulations will surely be implemented in the near future. This is why, while there is still relatively little KYC (Know Your Client) regulation, Crypto ATMs seem like a very attractive proposition. Once the crypto is on your wallet, you are essentially free to send it wherever you like and no-one will know it’s you.
As mentioned, there’s no need to create an account or register to use these ATMs so perhaps Bitcoin ATM companies can capitalise on this fact and acquire more of the market share for cryptocurrency buying and selling transactions. Statistics show that there are currently almost 39,000 cryptocurrency ATMs worldwide which is a massive increase considering that in January 2017, there were only a thousand active machines.
The reason for this, and one of the best things about the recent Bitcoin ATM phenomenon in the author’s opinion, is the ability to cash out your crypto instantly. There is no messing around with third-party payment gateways, like Zen, when withdrawing your assets into fiat currency from an exchange like Binance as happens in Poland, where only then can you transfer that amount to a bank account via your IBAN number.
This process takes a long time and isn’t user friendly. These companies, of course, also take a fee, so it’s clear that using more third-parties just means further costs. Institutions like banks can be avoided, which is helpful in many ways, adding flexibility for those without bank accounts or those who do not want the assets showing up on a bank statement, which government agencies are able to obtain from the banks quite easily.
To give an example, a Bitcoin ATM company like Shitcoins.club have sell fees which can sometimes also go into positive percentages, and (at the time of printing) in Ukraine, where the war is still raging, we can see a +4% sell fee, meaning if I were to sell $100 worth of Bitcoin I would get $104 in cash, and I would get it immediately into the palm of my hand. In Italy, Bulgaria, and Croatia, the sell commision percentage is at a tasty 0%, while the buying commision in Spain, where Shitcoins.club have a lot of Bitcoin ATMs, is only at 1%. In the kind of times we live in right now, that’s a pretty good deal, so it’s worth it for buyers and sellers to be alert for such offers.
The question now is, do investors want to keep using online crypto exchanges or are they willing to try a new method to purchase and sell their beloved crypto? The benefits are clear for both sides of the argument but two things are for certain - Bitcoin ATMs have important use cases and are quickly growing in popularity across a broad spectrum of users. To learn more about how to use these devices, check out our other general article and guide on Bitcoin ATMs or the one focusing on how you sell or buy cryptocurrencies there. Could this become a trend for how cryptocurrency is regularly bought and sold? What happened to the FTX online exchange can convince us that the answer is yes!
#bitcoinatm #ftx
Lidiya is editor-in-chief for Bitcoin-Ukraine and also spoke in Crowdcreate’s CryptoCom conference.
Everything you would like to learn about Bitcoin ATMs in Warsaw in Ukrainian.
You can buy USDT Lviv at this Bitcoin ATM. It lets you both buy & sell USDT & BTC and other crypto. It is anonymous below 29999 UAH and sometimes doesn't have fees.
Everything you would like to learn about Bitcoin ATMs in Warsaw in Ukrainian.
The community of investors using Bitcoin ATMs in Ukraine is growing quite rapidly. New devices are popping up every month. Prices, fees, KYC and Bitcoin all fluctuate quite visibly. It is becoming harder and harder to stay in the loop of what is happening in the Bitcoin ATM market in Odessa or Kiev. With this blog, you are able to follow the recent developments and never miss out on changes in law or new methods of trading crypto privately with cash.
%20(1440%20%C3%97%20850px)%20(705%20%C3%97%20657px)%20(1280%20%C3%97%20720px)%20(1080%20%C3%97%20720px)%20(726%20%C3%97%20485px).jpg)
