Walmart Shoppers Can Now Buy Bitcoin at 200 Kiosks in Its Stores (bloomberg.com) 49
Walmart has started a pilot program in which shoppers can buy Bitcoin at Coinstar kiosks in some of its U.S. stores. From a report: The test with Coinstar, which is known for the machines that let customers exchange U.S. coins for paper bills or gift cards, began earlier this month, Walmart spokeswoman Molly Blakeman said Thursday. The pilot includes 200 kiosks in Walmart stores. That's part of a broader initiative by Coinstar, which has teamed up with a cryptocurrency cash exchange called Coinme to offer Bitcoin at more than 8,000 kiosks. The pilot includes 200 kiosks in Walmart stores.
"Bitcoin ATMs have been around for a while, including in many supermarkets," said Sam Doctor, chief strategy officer and head of research at BitOoda, a regulated crypto brokerage. "Walmart expands Bitcoin access to more people, though, and gives it further legitimacy among skeptics, should they roll it out beyond an initial pilot." Walmart is testing the service weeks after a high-profile hoax in which a fake press release said the retailer would start letting customers pay with a cryptocurrency called Litecoin. While that announcement was false, Walmart is assessing the future of crypto in its operations. It advertised a job in August to develop "the digital currency strategy and product roadmap" while identifying "crypto-related investment and partnerships."
"Bitcoin ATMs have been around for a while, including in many supermarkets," said Sam Doctor, chief strategy officer and head of research at BitOoda, a regulated crypto brokerage. "Walmart expands Bitcoin access to more people, though, and gives it further legitimacy among skeptics, should they roll it out beyond an initial pilot." Walmart is testing the service weeks after a high-profile hoax in which a fake press release said the retailer would start letting customers pay with a cryptocurrency called Litecoin. While that announcement was false, Walmart is assessing the future of crypto in its operations. It advertised a job in August to develop "the digital currency strategy and product roadmap" while identifying "crypto-related investment and partnerships."
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I'm flattered how often you think of me.
Walmart started offering pyramid scheme in store? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Or if you convince them to give you something else for it, such as services. And Bitcoin is working great in that regard.
Pyramid scheme was a reasonable prediction in 2011, but anyone who still thinks that in 2021 is having a huge conflict with reality and history. Go on, tell yourself that Trump is still the president after winning the 2020 election and that Bitcoin will crash, but you shouldn't be surprised by the looks on real world inh
Re:Walmart started offering pyramid scheme in stor (Score:4, Insightful)
in many purchasing situations, there simply aren't any alternatives. If someone doesn't take paypal or credit cards and they're thousands of miles away, what else are you going to do?
Well, if you deal with sb who only accepts bitcoin, then I agree that there are no alternatives to bitcoin. How likely is this to occur, other than illegal activities (drugs, ransomware, ...)? I don't seem to live in the same world as you.
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And that's different from USD (or any other currency) how?
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"The USD is not a con based on a pyramid."
Really? The dollar bill in my wallet says differently. They printed the pyramid right on the bill!
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You don't make money by owning USD. You *lose* money.
That property makes it useful as a currency.
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And that's different from USD (or any other currency) how?
Original it was backed by gold, a physical object of value. I realize since the US has done away with it, how is the world exactly measuring currency is suspect. Bitcoin never had any specific physical value associated with it, which makes it much closer to a pyramid scheme than established currency.
Governments with elected officials used to be the better solution to control printing money against the gold. Now with bitcoin, any foreign power with a ton of computing power can significantly alter the value
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You can and must pay United States taxes in USD. That gives the dollar intrinsic value, since, even if you don't have any need to pay US taxes, a lot of people do, so they'll be willing to trade you something you want to get your USD from you.
The closest argument you could make for BitCoin is that you must pay ransomware hackers or drug dealers in BitCoin. That says a lot about BitCoin.
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(It's also not the same because the hackers / drug dealers would switch to another currency if BitCoin began losing acceptance, while the US government would not.)
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No, it's not for this. It's for robocallers to scam people of money. Instead of heading to some random oddball computer-ish store to use a machine tucked away in the back, you can head to your local walmart and they'll happily take your money to buy "back tax credits" or "police immunity" or whatever it is.
Get ready for an onslaught of more robocalls! I wonder how long the lineup to use those machines would be - I mean, they'll be lines as people hand over thousands of dollars to scammers...
No one would sus
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That incidentally is pretty much the same model used by the modern stock market.
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Don't be so negative. Kudos on WalMart for making it easier for grandmothers to pay their ransomware hostage takers!
Re:Oh goodie! (Score:5, Interesting)
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How is this news? (Score:2)
My local grocery store has had a machine which allows users to buy Bitcoin for months now, perhaps over a year.
Is this capability only news when Walmart does it?
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yes it is, your local little store doing it means nothing to most people, on the other hand a huge national chain doing it is news.
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nope, only seeing regional chains there, small fry next to Walmart
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Logic fail. It doesn't matter if they are in regional chains. The simple fact is that the Coinstar Bitcoin machines are in stores all over the country.
Also, this is only a pilot from Walmart: 200 stores.
This is a story about how Walmart is late to the game.
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Is that machine even popular?
21,000,000 (Score:2)
has anyOne explained y there will be just 21,000,000 bitcOins? the number seems 2 b sOmething mystic Or humOrOus like the name satOshi nakamOtO but please b seated, it's a cOuntdOwn
the American dream (Score:2)
Buy high, sell low at a kiosk right next to the scratchers.
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Better returns than the scratchers. I've NEVER won a penny from those things.
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with BTC it depends when you buy and when you sell, this dude [medium.com] lost $140 bucks by selling instead of holding and making around $660.
With a scratcher you don't have to do the mental gymnastics of deciding when to sell and when to hold, you get to side step that stressful and frankly unnecessary step. Unnecessary because either way you don't have control over the outcome when information needed for an informed decision isn't used or isn't available.
For those handful of folks that are good at balancing risk, di
Of course they can (Score:3)
Supporting something that fucks up the planet for no reason what so ever is right inline with Walmart's corporate mission.
Don't forget fucking the poor. (Score:2)
That's the most important and consistent part.
Where is the Bitcoin held? (Score:2)
I've always been curious about these machines as I see them in many different places (e.g. fuel stations, grocery stores). Where are these Bitcoins being held? Who's holding them and how secure are they? Can they be transferred to cold storage?
This sounds riskier than buying through Coinbase who's known for poor [reuters.com] security [slashdot.org] and customer service [cnbc.com]
Nowhere. Just like NFTs (Score:1)
Where are these Bitcoins being held?
The answer is simple: since you're buying fake, imaginary money, there's no need to "store" it anywhere. You only bought bragging rights to something that is worth nowhere near its stated value, just like NFTs.
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At least for the Coinstar machines, it's Coinme, which is a very basic exchange. The Coinstar machine prints out a voucher, which you redeem after registering at Coinme.
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I worked on Coinstar's physical security system a dozen years ago. I sincerely hope their network and program security is a lot better than their physical security, they didn't even have us put a card reader on the MDF room door, and the IT guy that I worked wit told me that all their servers were in the cheapest data center that they could contract.
correction... (Score:2)
Walmart Shoppers can now get rekt by buying Bitcoin at 200 stores, via kiosks.
There, fixed it.
On the up side ... (Score:2)
Walmart Shoppers Can Now Buy Bitcoin at 200 Kiosks in Its Stores
It's one of the few things you can buy at Walmart that isn't made in China...
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Since most of the early bitcoin is tied up in whale wallets and there's only about 10% left to mine, I wouldn't be surprised if the average satoshi you buy was in fact made in China.
This is great for me (Score:2)
No I can have the value of whatever I buy change by a few percent on the way to the store! Might go up, might go down, but the fun is not knowing until you make a need cash!
Another one way transaction kiosk? (Score:2)
Better than lottery tickets (Score:2)