The world's largest wholesale and retail chain, US company Walmart, has launched a pilot project to provide its customers with the ability to buy bitcoins at Coinstar kiosks, which are present in many of its stores in the US.
The pilot is part of a broader partnership between Coinstar, a maker of machines that allow customers to redeem coins for paper bills or gift cards, and US-based ATM operator Coinme, which sells bitcoin at more than 8,000 kiosks in the US, 200 of which are in Walmart stores.
The initiative was first reported by the CoinDesk resource, whose representative tested the service. Customers buying bitcoins instead of dollar bills receive a voucher at the Coinstar kiosk that can be exchanged for bitcoins minus a 4% service fee. Please note that customers must first create an account on the Coinme operator's network and go through data verification in order to redeem the voucher.
Sam Doctor, strategy director and head of research at cryptocurrency brokerage firm BitOoda, in an interview with Bloomberg, noted that bitcoin ATMs are already available in stores and malls in different parts of the world, it is just that Walmart is expanding access to bitcoins for more people and adding cryptocurrency legitimacy in the eyes of skeptics.
“This is an expensive way to buy bitcoin, but it reduces the barrier to entry for new buyers, ” added Doctor.
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