A decade ago, Bitcoin communities were small crowds of particularly techy, alternative, or keen on privacy— the oddball decentralized currency was just a few years old. Now, the masses can get cryptocurrency from the grocery store. Over 200 Coinstar ATMs in Walmart stores offer Bitcoin as part of a pilot program.
Walmart is the world's largest company by revenue, and by hosting Coinstar's Bitcoin exchange services, it carries the power to make Bitcoin more readily available. Coinstar explains the ATM-like machines on its website, noting that purchases carry a transaction fee of 4% and a cash exchange fee of 7%.
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.
CoinDesk
