There is an economic crisis in Argentina as peso value drops. And due to this, the Cryptocurrency market is growing and nearly 30 new Bitcoin ATM’s will be set up in Argentina to buy and sell Bitcoin.
According to Reuters, There are two US-based companies that provide Cryptocurrency ATM’s Athena Bitcoin and Odyssey Group. Besides, Athena Bitcoin was the firm which installed the first bitcoin ATM in Argentina’s Buenos Aires shopping mall.
Economic Crisis Gives Boost to Bitcoin ATM’s
The value of Peso has dropped nearly 50% in 2018. This opens an opportunity to the Cryptocurrency markets. Odyssey Group mentioned that their aim is to open 150 ATMs by the end of the year in Argentina. In that 80 % will be bitcoin ATM’s and will be fully operational at the beginning of 2019.
Dante Galeazzi, the operations manager at Athena Bitcoin said,
[ctt template=”7″ link=”j3Ouf” via=”yes” ]“Today, the cryptocurrency ATMs in the world are growing exponentially. In Argentina, there were no commercial ATMs and the idea was to be the first to capture the market,”[/ctt]
Galeazzi added, Due to this Economic Crisis there is a rise in bitcoin transactions. Thus to keep the value of peso safe this is an opportunity to invest in the market. And the ATM’s will support bitcoin in the beginning but later they will add other cryptocurrencies.
Odyssey Group ATMs has an advantage on Athena Bitcoin, as they will be able to use traditional bank transactions like deposits, withdrawals, and transferring money between different accounts. While Athena Bitcoin ATMs only allow to sell and buy cryptocurrencies.
Odyssey Group Subsidiary firm Octagon will process the Cryptocurrency transactions in Argentina. Octagon’s general manager Begona Perez De Solay noted that they hope to have nearly 1,600 bitcoin ATM’s for the company by the end of 2019.
In Future, Odyssey Group and Athena Bitcoin have plans to move towards Latin American countries and spread their operations.
