We are two regular guys from Sweden and we are thinking about buying a bitcoins ATM. It would be awesome if it had Peercoin support (Peershares even).
Do you know of anyone?
Perhaps I could do some modifications on the unit on my own (I make a living as a software engineer)?
All comments and feedback is much appreciated. 
yes yes yes pillow
as I understand it the bitcoin ATM would need to be modded yourself to make it a PPC issuer but hopefully this should be possible. I should mention there is an incentive to do this for devcoin as well as you will recieve a hefty devcoin bounty as well… and I was serioulsy considering this myself.
Where can you buy one from? What are your thoughts / plans / desires for the ATM in the future?
Fuzzybear
We’re doing a pre-study right now to see if we’ve got the resources to see it through to the end. At this point in time I have only seen about ATMs on the net, don’t know anything at all of what is required to run one and so forth and so on. After we have learned this and a whole lot of more, we will decide whether we will be able to do it or not.
If it was all up to me I would like to finance the endeavor using peershares and open source as much as possible. I’m looking for the fastest route to achieve our goals, so it would be awesome if other people around the world joined in and did the same and together we perhaps could share some of the load.
The vision is an ATM where you can buy: bitcoins, peercoins and peershares.
I don’t know if it shines through in this post, but I’m not really doing this for the money - though I wouldn’t mind making a living on doing something fun. I just think it would be totally awesome if we could have an ATM where you could buy shares. Without any broker, bank or whatever in between. In an ATM. Anonymously. “on the street”.
I know there is a fully licensed and approved ATM in Sweden, so a bitcoins ATM should be possible to get. If it’s only technically possible I can’t see any reason why a peercoins ATM shouldn’t be possible. Peershares however, that’s another matter entirely I guess - well not technically but we will definitely need to higher a lawyer.
Right now this is just a dream. I don’t know if I will have the time to pull this one through. I followed bitcoins from $10, reading reddit everyday and well… it would be nice to finally get my hands dirty and actually contribute something. 
EDIT: I just realized, I should probably document our progress here in this thread so you guys can wee what kind of troubles we encounters and how we deal with them. It’s likely that nothing will ever come of this, but doing it like this perhaps someone can pick up where we left off at least.
You could start here, with two different ATM projects that are DIY (do-it-yourself):
1. Open Bitcoin ATM | World’s first completely open-source Bitcoin automated teller machine
2. Here’s also a forum post from someone who runs cash2btc.com (bitcointalk post Nov 2013)
bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=325047.0
I bet you there are even more coming down the pipeline eventually too.
As with any new venture, do your own due diligence before sending BTC or money to “buy” a kit or similar. But these are very promising concepts.
I’m looking into building this thing from scratch using a Raspberry Pi. Next is finding a cash gizmo which can take SEK.
Anyway, I’m actually posting because I found this article about a Peercoins enabled ATM: http://www.techinasia.com/hong-kong-startup-plans-open-local-bitcoin-atm-network/
For SEK krona bills:
gitgroup.eu/Products/Bill_Acceptor/v7/v7.htm
They are also known as bill validators.
[quote=“pillow, post:5, topic:1667”]I’m looking into building this thing from scratch using a Raspberry Pi. Next is finding a cash gizmo which can take SEK.
Anyway, I’m actually posting because I found this article about a Peercoins enabled ATM: http://www.techinasia.com/hong-kong-startup-plans-open-local-bitcoin-atm-network/[/quote]
The key to having a successful ATM is to have it linked to a reputable exchange to off-load all the risk from the operator. Peercoin’s biggest exchange is BTC-E but since it is anonymous it is hard to link a legit business to it. On the other hand HKCEx plans to exchange all of the mentioned currencies so the risk will be immediately off-loaded on their exchange. Otherwise you have to supply Peercoins and take all the risks on pricing yourself.
[quote=“sahkan, post:7, topic:1667”][quote=“pillow, post:5, topic:1667”]I’m looking into building this thing from scratch using a Raspberry Pi. Next is finding a cash gizmo which can take SEK.
Anyway, I’m actually posting because I found this article about a Peercoins enabled ATM: http://www.techinasia.com/hong-kong-startup-plans-open-local-bitcoin-atm-network/[/quote]
The key to having a successful ATM is to have it linked to a reputable exchange to off-load all the risk from the operator. Peercoin’s biggest exchange is BTC-E but since it is anonymous it is hard to link a legit business to it. On the other hand HKCEx plans to exchange all of the mentioned currencies so the risk will be immediately off-loaded on their exchange. Otherwise you have to supply Peercoins and take all the risks on pricing yourself.[/quote]
Thanks for the input! I’ve been thinking a little bit about that.
I would prefer to create an account at one of the Swedish exchanges and buy BTC there. Then I would transfer small amounts of BTC to an exchange that has PPC. I really don’t want to want the customer to have to wait for that long, so I guess I would have to pre-purchase some amount and thus I guess I will have to somehow deal with the volatility involved.
I’ve noticed that PPC historically is moving together with the price of BTC, but with more volatility in terms of USD. If the pair continues to move like this, I might be able to take advantage of this to create a net neutral position. I’m also fully aware that talking about a “net neutral position” with these kinds of assets is kind of a joke but if I’m only working with smaller amounts and sell the coins with a floating premium, perhaps it just might work. Perhaps some sales will be at my cost, perhaps some will make up for that loss and hopefully it all averages out so that the ATM pays for itself and even generate some profits. For sure I see this as a challenge, but that’s part of what is so enticing.
As you can see I haven’t really started thinking about how to create a workable solution. Right now I’m looking at hardware and stuff like that, just to evaluate whether I will be able to pull this off or not technically speaking.
For SEK krona bills:
gitgroup.eu/Products/Bill_Acceptor/v7/v7.htm
They are also known as bill validators.[/quote]
One of the team members (and also she is my partner and automation engineer) also found this one: http://www.armatic.se/pdf/Micro.pdf
I was thinking that perhaps it would be a good idea to buy from a Swedish vendor, so that we get the warranty/support and all of that in a Swedish company. I’ve not looked into the pricing though, so perhaps if its cheap enough I guess it could be cheaper to just buy a new one then have it repaired though. I will have to look into that.
Thanks for the link ppcman. I got some hardware specification stuff to study now. 
One thing I realized when looking at the other open source ATM projects out there, was that it’s hard to find one with a good user interface. I’ve decided that I would very much prefer to develop the ATM GUI in HTML (because its easy to deploy, maintain, extends with new features and all of that) and run most of the operational code on a nodejs server in the cloud. It seemed to be a little bit difficult to get a good programming environment for GUI in Arduino, so I decided to look into Raspberry PI instead. PI seems to have a pretty good up-time and other ATM’s have been using them so this could be an option.
Why this design?
I want the ATM client to be as lightweight as I can get it. I figure that it would be smart to build the whole thing so that it can scale up if needed, easy to deploy and fast to work with if I have to do some security related hot fixes. I also want to be able to add new features to the machines and so forth and so on.
That said, I’m not looking for a bloated nodejs monster here. I would rather prefer the nodejs server to be a standalone thing, that can be spawned on the fly and where the unique ATM has its unique nodejs server instance. That way if one ATM or server is compromised, breaks down or has to be rebooted, it will not affect the rest of the system at all.
What Peercoin USD/EUR exchange do you guys trust the most? I need to be able to do bank wire / SWIFT or something like that. I live in Sweden.
I’ve established contact with a bill acceptor vendor that have stuff that works (out of the box) with Linux. They market themselves towards casinos and stuff like that, so it sounds good. I told them that we want to start with one machine and scale-up as the market permits and they think that sounds good to them. I guess that bridge has been partly crossed at least. Funny thing, only one company replied to my emails (I sent out a lot of them) and those guys seem to be really good and nice!
Next thing on the agenda is to find an exchange where we can buy the peercoins. Any advice?
EDIT: Worst case scenario I will have to do EUR to BTC to PPC, but I rather not.
I read that the first Bitcoin ATM in Vancouver, Canada used Bitstamp as the Bitcoin provider.
That will get your EUR to BTC in a reliable way.
Once you have BTC, you can buy PPC elsewhere.
While it may make it easy initially to have one provider accept EUR and buy PPC. Think of what needs to be done if that provider goes down, or ceases operation. You will need to probably have a backup way of getting EUR into PPC.
So I recommend EUR ->BTC and then trade BTC for PPC as the main way of doing it now.
This way, as long as you have BTC, you can always trade it for PPC any where with any provider’s API.
An ATM provider must accept that where they are getting their PPC from may change. So don’t look for a Bank Transfer to PPC link yet. That is my suggestion.
[quote=“pillow, post:11, topic:1667”]What Peercoin USD/EUR exchange do you guys trust the most? I need to be able to do bank wire / SWIFT or something like that. I live in Sweden.
I’ve established contact with a bill acceptor vendor that have stuff that works (out of the box) with Linux. They market themselves towards casinos and stuff like that, so it sounds good. I told them that we want to start with one machine and scale-up as the market permits and they think that sounds good to them. I guess that bridge has been partly crossed at least. Funny thing, only one company replied to my emails (I sent out a lot of them) and those guys seem to be really good and nice!
Next thing on the agenda is to find an exchange where we can buy the peercoins. Any advice?
EDIT: Worst case scenario I will have to do EUR to BTC to PPC, but I rather not.[/quote]
I’ve good experiences with buying at litebit.eu but I think you need a German or Dutch euro bank account for instant transfers. You can do bank transfers though. Suggest to have a look at their FAQ or contact them directly.
They are not a big exchange, so if you need to buy more significant quantities I’m afraid you need to go through the btc route.
Good luck and please let us know when you got a Peercoin ATM working. I’m sure there are a few people keen to get one, including here in New Zealand.
[quote=“Cybnate, post:13, topic:1667”][quote=“pillow, post:11, topic:1667”]What Peercoin USD/EUR exchange do you guys trust the most? I need to be able to do bank wire / SWIFT or something like that. I live in Sweden.
I’ve established contact with a bill acceptor vendor that have stuff that works (out of the box) with Linux. They market themselves towards casinos and stuff like that, so it sounds good. I told them that we want to start with one machine and scale-up as the market permits and they think that sounds good to them. I guess that bridge has been partly crossed at least. Funny thing, only one company replied to my emails (I sent out a lot of them) and those guys seem to be really good and nice!
Next thing on the agenda is to find an exchange where we can buy the peercoins. Any advice?
EDIT: Worst case scenario I will have to do EUR to BTC to PPC, but I rather not.[/quote]
I’ve good experiences with buying at litebit.eu but I think you need a German or Dutch euro bank account for instant transfers. You can do bank transfers though. Suggest to have a look at their FAQ or contact them directly.
They are not a big exchange, so if you need to buy more significant quantities I’m afraid you need to go through the btc route.
Good luck and please let us know when you got a Peercoin ATM working. I’m sure there are a few people keen to get one, including here in New Zealand.[/quote]
Great news. I’m willing to pay a (small) premium for the PPC if I can avoid buying BTC (not only because it might be cheaper after all the additional transaction and exchange costs, but also because I want to push money into the Peercoin price directly).
ppcman, thanks for the feedback. I will definitely see to it that I have many fallback options, if one or more exchanges shuts down. Actually I will be using a portion of the startup investment to buy up coins in advance. Since I’m pretty good at trading, I believe I will be able to buy coins cheap and sell them at a much greater price (and if not, the downside risk is small, since nobody can force me to sell them at a loss 
).
You will do well. Plenty of room to earn a profit.
In 29 days of operation, the Robocoin ATM in Vancouver did over $1 million dollars worth of volume, and that was when Bitcoin wasn’t as well known as it is now.
http://www.geekwire.com/2013/worlds-bitcoin-atm-exceeds-1m-transaction-volume-month/