An ATM at Vancouver Cafe, has pulled out a lot of attractions towards its peculiarity. Its a distributed peer-to-peer digital currency system. The new ATM machine, which converts bitcoins to Canadian dollars and vice versa, is the first of four ATMs to be opened across Canada. It went into service officially at 9 am on OCtober 29th at Waves Coffee House in downtown Vancouver. The ATM will be operated by Vancouver-based Bitcoiniacs and Nevada-based Robocoin.
The machine is operated in a systematic way. The customers need to have their palms scanned, and they can exchange uptp $3000 worth of bitcoins each day. Canadian currency can be deposited or withdrawn from the machine and exchanged for bitcoins on Canada's VirtEx exchange. The bitcoins are then transferred to and from the customer's online bitcoin wallet.
The main attraction of this bitcoin system is, it isn't controlled by any authority like a central bank. For vendors, its cheaper than accepting any of the major credit cards, and its the best performing currency in the world. Its also started to be used as an investment currency.
Its a good invention, going to hit the market soon. But still there are controversies about its illegal use. Questions arises, such as, whether this can be used to buy or sell illicit goods like drugs and other materials, helpful for hackers etc. There are already a series of issues that happened similar to this case. So there are a lot to think about being used as a financial source.
Some points to note: The mechanics of the virtual currency were first outlined in a research paper signes Satoshi Nakamoto and the coins made their online debut in 2009. Its explained a lot about how coins are created, how transactions are authenticated and how the whole system manages to power forward without a central bank, no financial regulator and a use base of wily hackers all comes down to computer power and savoir faire. The linchpin of the system is a network of "miners"- high end computer users who supply the Bitcoin network with processing power needed to maintain a transparent, running tally of all transactions. The tally is one of the most important ways in which the system prevents fraud, and the miners are rewarded for supporting the system with an occasional helping of bran-new bitcoins.
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