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First Experience with Bitcoin ATM (self.Bitcoin)

AnonRaccoon が 投稿

So I discovered that there was a bitcoin ATM located a fair distance away from where I live (about 40 min or so) and decided to try it out and sell some BTC for USD. I'm a fairly experienced bitcoin user of about two years now so I think it's safe to say I know what I am doing. Despite this experience though, I still had issues with the ATM.

After confirming my identity through a phone verification it asked me how much I wanted to sell. At a fee of 13% I decided to sell about $150 in BTC. They provide their wallet QR code and I scan it. The whole process took about 5 minutes which I believe is a normal amount of time for a fiat ATM as well. The machine provided me with a receipt that had my transaction info on it and a redemption code with which I could redeem for my USD. However, I didn't consider that the transaction needed to be confirmed. I realized this and still wasn't upset by the experience at all so left and came back after the transaction had been confirmed.

Even after it was confirmed I still couldn't withdraw my money though. Despite that it was, the machine believed that it hadn't yet been confirmed even though it had been about 15 min and both my wallet and blockchain.info verified it was confirmed. I was annoyed at this point but chalked it up to the machine requiring a certain amount of confirmations before it could release the USD. So, I ended up leaving and coming back a few hours later when it had well over 50 confirmations. It still didn't release the money insisting that it wasn't confirmed yet. I've gone ahead and emailed the owner of the ATM already to get back my BTC, but I just wanted to share my experience with you all.

If we want bitcoin ATM's to become mainstream, we need to work out the issues with them. If I were a first time user of bitcoin I would be completely turned off to it after this experience. In my opinion this includes reducing the confirmation time. mentioning somewhere on the ATM how many confirmations are required so the user can estimate his/her wait, providing reasonable fees (imagine having a 13% fee when exchanging USD for EURO), assuring there are no bugs with the ATM, and providing a more secure way to access the ATM later. Seriously, with the receipt I had anyone could have just taken it from me and I'd be out around $150.

Tl;Dr - Had issues with BTC ATM. Emailed ATM owner. Some things to help BTC ATM's go mainstream are reducing the confirmation time. mentioning somewhere on the ATM how many confirmations are required so the user can estimate his/her wait, providing reasonable fees, assuring there are no bugs with the ATM, and providing a more secure way to access the ATM later.

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[–]Zepowski 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

The bitcoin ATM close to my place is ALWAYS offline, rebooting or out of order. It's disgraceful. Hundreds of people walk by it every day.

[–]BitcoinATM 4ポイント5ポイント  (2子コメント)

Hi /u/AnonRaccoon,

Evan from Genesis here. First, I'd like to say I am terribly sorry for your experience. Our node had an unforeseen issue and was stuck behind the network, leading to the awful experience above. This is not what we strive for, and I've taken the appropriate steps to ensure this does not ever happen again -- to you, or anyone else.

There's no excuse for having to wait this long and -- luckily or not -- we hadn't experienced this issue before and you unfortunately bore the full impact of it for which I am extremely sorry. I sent you a PM, let me help you get this sorted out ASAP.

[–]gta350 -4ポイント-3ポイント  (1子コメント)

dude, your business will soon die, there will come new people that will consider 3% fair enough to drive all day trough the city and do trades with people, without ID scan. the most amazing thing is that even the ATM operator from my city started to do business directly with people who come to use the ATM.

[–]paulmadore 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I just read that in a German accent.

[–]BitcoinWallet 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

These ATMs need to do better risk analysis for selling coins. It's really a nuisance that customers needs to wait for confimations. At least for small amounts, they could rely on metrics like transaction propagation and how much network fee was paid by the sender.

[–]paulmadore 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

The whole process took about 5 minutes which I believe is a normal amount of time for a fiat ATM as well.

No, not at all. My average time at a fiat ATM is about 1.5-3 mins, depending on how it's connected to the network. Unbelievably, some are still dial-up.

[–]tl121 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

The designers of the bitcoin ATM should do some benchmarking of bank card ATMs, including time and motion studies of human behavior. Then they should use this information to set a time budget for all the steps of the corresponding bitcoin transaction, so that it is significantly faster than the bank card ATM. (If the bitcoin technology makes this impractical then they should be proactive in getting the bitcoin network to run faster.)

[–]brokedown 3ポイント4ポイント  (4子コメント)

There are a lot of different bitcoin ATMs out there, you should maybe mention which type you used.. Your experience is not going to be universal.

[–]AnonRaccoon[S] 2ポイント3ポイント  (3子コメント)

Good point, the machine was Genesiscoin. I haven't used any others, but I imagine the process is the same or very similar so the issues I mentioned are still valid. The biggest being the confirmation time. Most people who go to ATM's don't have the time or the patience to wait ten minutes or longer for the transaction to confirm.

[–]coinradar 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

It really depends on the operator how many confirmations to set. Sometimes the number of confirmations may depend on the amount you withdraw, which makes sense to me. E.g. I would allow to withdraw up to $200 without confirmations (just transaction to be seen on network), however if somebody wants to get $2000 out of ATM, I would probably ask for at least 2 confirmations.

Just as an example, here is similar Genesis1 machine to what you used, and it withdraws immediately https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBNk3K2Q-t0

Anyway, in your case 50+ confirmations and no withdrawal is definitely some issue, normally it is 0,1,2 - confirmations operators ask.

[–]jimmajamma 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

Why would you assume the issue you had, requiring 50+ confirmations and still not releasing your funds, would be "the same or very similar" to other ATMs? To me that would seem to be some sort of failure case, not a success case. If all 2-way BTMs were the same, there clearly would be no market for them.

Some other statements you've made are also not very good assumptions:

"The whole process took about 5 minutes which I believe is a normal amount of time for a fiat ATM as well" - To withdraw cash from a fiat ATM takes under 2 minutes if not 1. That said, there are very different things happening behind the scenes and I would think at this stage most people doing a BTM withdrawal would understand those differences at least at a basic level.

"Most people who go to ATM's don't have the time or the patience to wait ten minutes or longer for the transaction to confirm." - Chocked full of assumptions. ATM user != BTM user. ATM != BTM.

Please keep this post updated with your resolution. I hope you get your BTC back.

[–]StressOverStrain 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Because people are used to whatever ATM they go to working properly. If you want Bitcoin to be more than internet backwater tokens, you're going to have to acknowledge people's preconceived notions; they are the path to success.

[–]grnqrtr 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

I've always been curious what the process was like going from BTC to fiat at an ATM. Thanks for the info, sorry it didn't go well.

[–]gr8n8au 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

i think this happened because of the malleability attack that has been happening

[–]AnonRaccoon[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

In my email to the owner I asked what the issue was so hopefully they'll get back to me today and I can let you know the problem.

[–]FargoBTC 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Doubt this if you see the transaction fine with confirmations under the same transaction ID provided.

[–]IGETSHIVERSWHENIP -1ポイント0ポイント  (2子コメント)

Was it a robocoin ATM?

[–]gijensen92 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

OP said Genesiscoin in a comment.

[–]IGETSHIVERSWHENIP 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Thanks for doing all the hard reading for me.

[–]shayanbahal 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

some of the issues Bitcoin ATMs have are related to the lack of a reliable block explorer API: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3p948j/wtf_most_legit_blockexplorers_are_out_of_sync/