Walmart Quietly Installs 200 Bitcoin ATMs With Coinstar, Coinme

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In anoth­er sign of increased adop­tion of the world’s lead­ing cryp­tocur­ren­cy, Wal­mart has installed 200 Bit­coin ATMs in stores across the U.S. in a part­ner­ship between Coin­star and Coin­me, accord­ing to report­ing from Reuters.

Fast facts

  • The pilot pro­gram involves Coin­star, best known for its machines that allow cus­tomers to exchange U.S. coins for paper bills or gift cards, and dig­i­tal cur­ren­cy exchange Coin­me. It will see over 8,000 Bit­coin kiosks rolled out as part of a broad­er ini­tia­tive, of which 200 are in Wal­mart. In order to use the machines, cus­tomers must have a Coin­me wal­let and pass know-your-cus­tomer require­ments. There is a 4% fee for exchang­ing Bit­coin and 7% exchange fee for fiat, accord­ing to the Coin­star website.
  • The launch was some­what sub­dued as Wal­mart was the tar­get of a hoax recent­ly, which claimed the com­pa­ny would soon be sup­port­ing ATMs for the cur­ren­cy Lite­coin. The scam was made to appear all the more believ­able as it appeared on lead­ing press release dis­tri­b­u­tion ser­vices, Globe­Newswire and was cov­ered by sev­er­al major news out­lets, includ­ing Reuters and CNBC. It caused the price of Lite­coin to jump 33% before Wal­mart pub­licly dis­pelled the rumors.
  • Lite­coin is cur­rent­ly the world’s 15th largest coin by mar­ket cap and was trad­ing at US$199 at press time.
  • Bit­coin has been on a price tear for the past month, gain­ing more than 60% in that time to reach a new all-time high of US$67,276 ear­li­er this week. It has since dropped back slight­ly and was trad­ing at US$63,740 at press time, accord­ing to data from CoinGecko.

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