Some of the newest integrations of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency into our financial world are going to come through those little green boxes in retail stores that allow you to get rid of your spare change.
Coindesk reports Walmart is adding Bitcoin capability to 200 of its Coinstar machines situated in physical stores around the country.
“The cryptocurrency ATM industry is expanding at a rapid pace, partly fueled by the COVID pandemic,” writes Ian Allison. “Coinstar announced plans in 2020 to double its fleet of 3,500 Coinme BTMs amid a spike in usage. More recently, Coinstar, which started adding bitcoin-buying services with Coinme in early 2019, added 300 bitcoin-enabled machines at Winn-Dixie, Fresco y Más, Harveys and other grocery stores across Florida. But Walmart, long seen as the crown jewel to bringing crypto financial services into the mainstream, is another step up – even if the 200-kiosk pilot is chump change for a company with 4,700 stores and a market cap of $409 billion.”
Now, for a fee, users have the ability to dump all of that metal cash into the hopper, see it counted up, and then use all or part of that amount to purchase cryptocurrency.
But one of the strangest parts of this story is the precedent – Walmart was deliberate about how to announce this legitimate change after a fake press release September 13 informed everyone that Walmart would be offering and on-ramp to Litecoin, a newer and less familiar altcoin with a much lower per-coin price.
There was also a real-world effect of the hoax – LTC value bounce up nearly 30% temporarily.
Wanting to avoid this type of issue, Walmart is now striving for clarity to announce the new Bitcoin capacity of Coinstar machines.
“Coinstar, in partnership with Coinme, has launched a pilot that allows its customers to use cash to purchase bitcoin,” Walmart communications director Molly Blakeman reportedly said in a press statement. “There are 200 Coinstar kiosks located inside Walmart stores across the United States that are part of this pilot.”
Visual coverage of the new suggests administrators will also add small visual cards to the machines themselves to notify shoppers that they can get Bitcoin there.
How much will this new addition promote on-the-street Bitcoin trading? We’ll see.