Buying beers with bitcoin at The Old Fitzroy Hotel, Woolloomooloo, Sydney. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOZd9Ycyt10[/youtube] Using the Bitcoin vending machine, Black Star Pastry, Rosebery, Sydney. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6I0B2vDhFY[/youtube] My mobile phone was purchased with bitcoin from Millennius (millennius.com)
I think the % mark up is probably around 3% but don't quote me (I'm not sure what it is). The location of the machine provides a relatively safe environment for people interested in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to easily take part in the ecosystem. Especially women. When I started out, I relied on the honesty of a tech guy (with his nerd money) I would meet outside of his office at Google in Darling Harbour Sydney. I had no smart mobile phone back then to check the transaction on the spot. Lots of trust. I handed over cash, and went home to see if the bitcoins had arrived on my wallet!. A little nerve racking for me at the beginning of my entry into the cryptocurrency space...times are changing and more options are improving things. FYI, $100 AUD converted to 202 mBTC via the Lamassu vending machine at 2:22pm on 12/04/2014.
I was very impressed with the Lamassu machine that I used at room 77 I what you paid is more closer to a 5.5% over the bitstamp rate LOB, which will hopefully go down over time. I wonder if any of these ATM operators are going to have problems with there banks.
I like the idea of going out and just taking your phone, no wallet. With respect to bitcoin, beer is to in person trade what alpaca socks were to online sales a few years ago.....
...until you don't have wifi or 3/4G network coverage. I'm sure there's Bitcoin apps being developed that will get around this, but I ran into this problem in Europe where I had some inconsistent data roaming and had to jump on a wifi network to use the Blockchain app.
