In the March / April Dash treasury funding period there were two ATM proposals.  One in France and the other for New Jersey.  I have interviewed both to see what progress they have made.  These projects have their “regulatory” issues to deal with and while both projects are moving forward neither has working public ATM’s at this time.

Lyon France ATM

ATMs in major French cities is the pre proposal discussion on the Dash forum.

A Dash Brand ATM in downtown Lyon (70 Dash) is the proposal request entered March 19, 2017 on Dash Central by forum member thesavoyard  Votes: 845 Yes / 265 No / 28 Abstain.

Christopher Felix (thesavoyard) an American who lives in France runs a small vending machine business that is getting into Bitcoin / Dash ATM machines.

Do you have an ATM installed for public use? How is it working out?

I do not yet have an ATM installed, I’ve been working on it for about two months now. I am getting a lot closer but it may take up to a few months.

What are the major problems getting it going? Please explain.

The problems have been pretty broad. I live in France where many people haven’t even heard of bitcoin. I was in negotiations with the regional vendor manager of the SNCF (train stations) to place the machines and she was very positive. She was negotiating what percentage they would charge and then stopped responding. I suspect this has something to do with Wannacry (computer ransomware virus) but I can’t be sure, either way, it’s highly unprofessional. I’m going to send one more email, it is possible she went on another vacation, it is France and things slow down starting May.

Another issue is the legality. There are no lawyers specializing in cryptocurrencies. Our small business attorney is also dragging his feet so I have to go to other sources for information.

Model of machine you are using?  Is it both Bitcoin and Dash?  How was the purchase / availability / delivery / installation process?

I have not yet purchased a machine for Lyon or any other location. I am also working on a machine for Amsterdam as I’m moving there this year. Once I have all the information I will decide which machine to place where. I will place one BATM2 and one BATM3. Most likely I will place the BATM2 in Lyon, due to the lower adoption rate I think Lyon will have more buy transactions than sell.

Will your machines be able to both sell and buy Dash?  

Neither machine can buy or sell Dash at the moment. I have been pushing Martijn from General Bytes to do a Dash budget proposal to enable this. Dash cannot be supplied on the ATM from an exchange at the moment, only from a wallet. So they would need to write the code to do that, the exchange would need a fiat to Dash function as well. There is also programming needed to add the NFC card wallets to Dash.

Regulatory issues?  Permits, licenses or other requirements you had to deal with?

For regulatory issues in France, it’s not too bad, my lawyer hasn’t done much yet but I’ve gotten information from Loomis and other ATMs in France. No special licensing is needed to run any kind of ATM. You must have a safe on premises and it has to be away from the public. Standard ATM for France so it should be fine. For AML compliance I can only compare to the other machines, it seems to be limited to 1000 euros and requires a text confirmation for all transactions. I will wait for my lawyer to give the final word before I set the limits and AML compliance.

Marketing / branding plans to get people to use machines and highlight Dash?

Now that Dash has made public the vectored graphics needed to make custom stickers, I will have them made myself. The machines will give Dash top billing, though other cryptos sold will also be tagged. It will have the full “Dash Digital Cash & BTC” sticker on it. I may add Etherium and/or Ripple later on.

For marketing, I will enable the live updates to coinatm radar, this will give live updates to people looking for a cryptoatm. I’ve also considered Facebook and Google marketing to reach potential customers but we’ll have to see based on the budget.

How did you determine location?

For location, I would like the most pedestrian traffic possible. This is good both for my business and for cryptos. Many people want to invest in cryptos but it isn’t convenient in any way. The Gare de part Dieu is ideal with over 52 million people going through it. My second choice is the mall next door, also called part Dieu. My last choice is in a shop or bar next to the train station. Not ideal but it would get the ball rolling.

Do you have plans for more machines?

As I said earlier, I’m already working on Amsterdam. I will also expand to other cities in the Netherlands like Rotterdam and Utrecht. As for Paris or other French cities, we’ll have to see how Lyon works out. A relationship with the SNCF would be ideal, could you imagine an ATM at every major French train station? This is why it is taking longer, the location is the most important factor for success.

Thanks again for your interest in my project! I hope I can show some real results to the Dash community soon.

 

South Jersey ATM

Pre-Proposal Crypto ATM Systems South Jersey USA  by  Miner237 posted on March 20, 2017.

A DASH Branded ATM Systems South Jersey USA (75 Dash) was posted on March 20, 2017. Votes: 837 Yes / 156 No / 6 Abstain

Miner237 AKA PhilaDASHia on the Dash slack group has been working on starting an ATM business for over a year. He is also the owner of buywithdash.org.

Do you have an ATM installed for public use? How is it working out?

Currently I only have ATM AKA kiosk for private use. I am not officially licensed to operate for profit as a company in NJ. Thus no public units yet.

What are the major problems getting it going? Please explain. Regulatory issues?  Permits, licenses or other requirements you had to deal with?

If you follow the law at a “strict level” this is considered a money transmitter operation. So I spent 1 year meeting these strict requirements to apply. NJ and DE have some of the lower entry points to getting money transmission license, the hardest part I had to have my business have a $100k + valuation.

I talked with about 4 to 6 lawyers. Each lawyer only knew just enough and passed me along.  It seems banking law is a very niche area.  I was talking to a real estate attorney to get property transferred to my business name building the valuation minimums.  All while fulfilling other required items like fingerprints and federal registration.

But then I found the legal team, Cogent Law at the Miami bitcoin conference, they brought the compliance program together for Dash (see Dash ATM Master Compliance Program – Phase I).  They are leveraging the fact that crypto like Dash is not “money”

so I abandoned my thinking about “strict” regulation and getting a money transmitter license.

Cogent law now represents my company, they are getting approval from NJ banking committee for me to operate without the money transmitter license.  So that reduces requirements for KYC and reporting, and yearly fees to the state.

Model of machine you are using?  Is it both Bitcoin and Dash?  How was the purchase / availability / delivery / installation process?

I have Lamassu and General Bytes (GB) machines $6,500 and $3,000 USD respectively.  Ordering from Lamasu was easier than GB and support seemed faster with Lamassu but without a developer making some new code for Lamassu it’s not going anywhere as a platform for Dash. It works well as a BTC two way system just no real Dash integration.

The GB BATMTWO can support a few other crypto coins. I am planning to bring on at least 2 of the 2way machines once GB lets me know Dash support is ready.  There is currently a bug that does not allow the qr code to scan Dash address and a bunch of small challenges getting the back end server setup.

The Lamassu hardware in my opinion is high grade much better than general bytes, it is thick steel. I would not want to run holding it  – like 70 lbs.  Where the GB is like 45 lbs I carry it to and from my basement, easy to snatch and run.  It’s a toss up which is better there is certainly room for a third mfg to make a better crypto teller. Both are just 1 way right now.

Will your machines be able to both sell and buy Dash?  

The Lamassu has a complicated conversion to make Dash vend. I worked with their developer directly and it took us about 5 hours to convert it to Dash.  It doesn’t have any rebuy or exchange api connection so is only one way for Dash.  

Rumor is GB will add Dash 2 way support this year to their top tier machines.

Marketing / branding plans to get people to use machines and highlight Dash?

I would like to offer BTC and LTC with between 7 and 8% fee and Dash with zero fee…

No marketing plan other than informing some of the local Bitcoin groups

I would post locations to coin radar.

How did you determine location?

Scouting location near my work commute and home was my first way to find homes for these units. But I was met with great ignorance of the space and some hatefulness of it.

I am still doing cold call sales and door to door efforts where I think it can be a good fit like in check cashing facilities.

Do you have plans for more machines?

I have three, 1 that very might well end up at Skatopia skateboard park in Ohio. GB required 5 be purchased to get the white and blue Dash branding I split with Coingun who picked up the other two.

So all in all about 1.5 years in the making I should have my first machine out before fall time. I hope to build up to about 10 or 12 locations locally and at some point I would like to help others operate zero fee Dash kiosk in other states.