The Price Of Privacy Or Rather A Ripoff?
Investing in crypto can be done in different ways. You can transfer your fiat from your bank account to exchanges, but there's also the option of using a crypto ATM.
Using a crypto may look strange and may not be available for everyone, but it has its advantages, one of which is you can have your privacy as no identification is needed if you stay under a certain limit. You go to the ATM, feed the big box with fiat, scan the QR code and crypto goes straight into your cold storage. You can even avoid the cameras, wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses as there's no alarm to go off as it happens when you go into those caged selling points.
I've used is a couple of times this year as I had some cash and the February dip was an occasion not to miss for me. The selling price was convenient, so why not?
Now that the whole market is in fire, bitcoin has been swinging up and down, I was keeping an eye on their rates, in case I see some appealing numbers on my screen.
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I few weeks ago I noticed the rate difference between the ATM rates and what exchanges are listing BTC for. Obviously no one can expect the two rates to be the same, there has to be a difference but in this case but the difference is quite substantial.
The chart above says that at the time of writing 1 BTC was sold at $56,053.
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This is what Coinmarketcap was showing in the same time. Average rate $53,644.6.
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The beauty of Coinmarketcap is that you can have a look at some of the major exchanges rates under the chart. All these exchanges were selling BTC at rated between $53,500 and $53,700, roughly.
The difference between the ATM and exchanges is roughly $2,353, which percentage wise is 4.3%. This is huge, no matter how you look at it. I don't even mention the huge gap between the buying and selling rate. $49,652 buying, $56,053 selling.
I'm not sure what's happened to this ATM software but it wasn't like that when I bought crypto last time.
I'm also not sure how they operate as this is buying and selling on demand, they may sell or not and they are making profits on fees but it looks more like a ripoff at the moment, by no means a good deal.
Almost a month ago the software went crazy and this is what was displaying for a few hours.
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I did a post about it as was very shocking and now this.
Privacy is important and it's convenient to send crypto to your cold storage, without going through KYC verification but not at these rates. At the moment this looks like a very bad deal.
I'm curious to see if this is the case in other countries, where the ATM operator is not shitcoins.club. If you're familiar with these ATM's drop me a comment.
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https://www.bybit.com/en-US/invite?ref=m3yjA
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I've never actually seen a crypto ATM although I'm sure we must have them in the UK. It's not something I'd be that interested in using though. Even less so after reading this post! 😊
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It depends on the situation. It could be good if you have fiat but not at these rates. This is a ripoff. I'm going to keep and eye on it but don't think I'll be using it though :)
!ENGAGE 30
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ENGAGEtokens.I havent either.
Never came across one.
Then again, I dont get out much so there is that.
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😂 Me neither although this past weekend I got out of the county for the first time in 18 months! 😱
!ENGAGE 20
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ENGAGEtokens.There is a premium for the convenience and, like you said, the privacy.
However, is it truly private? I am sure there are cameras there and with facial recognition software, I would guess that they could like a fact up to the time of the transaction.
Just a thought.
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These ATM's are usually placed in spaces with high traffic, almost exclusively in hypermarkets, so there are lots of cameras. However, last time when I was there I said let's have a little fun and used a face mask, which is still mandatory, sunglasses and a hat as it was cold, sub zero C outside. So face recognition software doesn't really help.
!ENGAGE 30
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I read that the facial recognition software is starting to penetrate those types of coverings. I could be wrong on this but I wouldnt be surprised if it was true. After all, they can go after the bone structure to help construct the fact and cross reference it.
Either way, I hope it is anonymous but like you said at what price. I would prefer to run it through a Litecoin once they get the privacy feature set up and lose the government that way.
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That may be true for the US but we're talking about Romania, so don't expect much. Obviously if they would detect something highly illegal, they would investigate, but the amount of fiat I put in doesn't worth the paper.
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ENGAGEtokens.Quite the difference indeed. Maybe they charge less without the baseball cap and the sunglasses?
Thanks for the comparison info.
Lol, I wish that was true but it isn't, there was no sign on the ATM saying that :)
!ENGAGE 20
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ENGAGEtokens.I have not seen any crypto ATMs around here. The closest we have to anything like that are the "CoinStar" machines at supermarkets where people can bring in their jars and bags of loose coins to be counted and turned into a voucher they can then use at the supermarket... OR cash, for a hefty 6% fee. One of the new features with these is that they can also be used to buy Bitcoin... but I have not checked their exchange rates.
=^..^=
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