Wednesday, May 27, 2015

In case you wanted to buy bitcoins from a temporary ATM on East 6th Street



You're in luck! EVG regular Jose Garcia spotted this operation on East Sixth Street between Avenue B and Avenue C... the sign explains how it works...

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks perfectly legit and credible. Yeah, OK.

I'll give you $10 for that $20, and I'll do it with a smile! .. said...

I prefer to give my identity and credit card information to the people who stand on the street collecting for "charities". At least that way I know that my money is safe.

Anonymous said...

Bitcoin for sale! The future of currency is here! According a handwritten sign and a folded one taped to a freaking box ... even the Bitcoin sticker is crooked.

Scooby said...

Jeez...what a con.

Anonymous said...

Bernie Madoff was framed !

Eden Bee said...

I bought some and it worked out great! I visited the DarkNet and now I own some illegal ferrets and fireworks!

Anonymous said...

Bitcoin? And Angelica won't even take ccs. He's in the wrong hood lol.

Anonymous said...

I kind of love it.

Anonymous said...

Maybe it should be called a two-bit coin. Has to be worth at least 25 cents..no?

Moon said...

Hi!

I'm the guy who owns the machine and in the photo and I wanted to say thanks for the coverage! If I could address some concerns from above comments:

1) I don't need or want anyone's identity or credit card information. This machine takes cash only and returns bitcoin to the purchaser in an easily verifiable way if one has a wallet.

2) Sorry about the handwritten sign but I realized early on that nobody was really grasping what was going on and they were not stopping to read the little posters I whipped up that morning. So since I was stuck down there (don't want to leave the machine unattended), I wrote something up that tried to make clear what was going on. Actually the whole effort was more of a "What if?" so I just grabbed some cardboard, made some quick signs, and went for it. Next time I'll have it looking sharper!

3) 1 bitcoin is currently worth about $240. However one does not have to buy an entire bitcoin at my machine - one can buy as little as $1 worth. It doesn't seem like one could do a lot with that, but bitcoin is very divisible. Like a dollar is worth 100 cents, 1 bitcoin can be broken down into 100,000,000 pieces., so you can do lots of little things like send some fraction of a dollar's worth of bitcoin to people you like on Twitter or to artists whose music you like on Soundcloud.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your clarification, Moon. I have read a lot about Bitcoin and intend to use them. Most of you don't have a clue about what is coming. You just want to make disparaging comments. Educate yourselves first.

Anonymous said...

I prefer the local acai coins, bubble tea coins, and dumpling coins myself.

Anonymous said...

@ Anon 1:33 - Quite a few of us know exactly what is coming ... and thankfully most of us will be dead by then. But you enjoy your cashless society and its instantly revocable (for bad behavior) credits, etc.

Anonymous said...

Money functions as money no matter what you call it. The value of bitcoins will not be determined by what you paid for them, but the value of the things you exchange them for, most of which won't even exist in the zombie apocalypse.

Crazy Eddie said...

When bitcoins are involved with major corruption and bribery (FIFA), then we will know that they have arrived.

Eden Bee said...

Pretty sure everyone knows what bitcoins are. If not go by BitCoins for dummies. Yes that's a real book. Most of us "know what's coming" the joke is it looks like a shady set up. Nice you read about bitcoins and may use them someday. Guess you're the expert! Go to coincafe they process within 24 hours with only a small fee. BITCOINS ARE COMING FOLKS YOU DONT EVEN KNOW NEXT IS THE AMERO!! I will sell them out of a shoebox while sitting in a dumpster. BUY BUY SELL SELL!

Eden Bee said...

Last time I bought bitcoins I bought naughty schoolgirl underwear from silkroad 2 and they got busted before they could ship it to me.
So I went on agora and bought some fake IDs to sell to kids instead.
God bless bitcoins.

jose garcia said...

this entire thread makes me laugh. how much do i love our neighborhood? xo, jg

Anonymous said...

RE: Anonymous May 28, 2015 at 5:04 PM

I attended one of Bitpay's Bitcoin-hyping seminars during SXSW Interactive this year. One of the panelists mentioned that Bitcoin as an concept was presented in a "white paper" document that was published anonymously. The panelist went on to pre-empt anyone's trepidation over the anonymous source of Bitcoin by saying something to the effect of, "It doesn't matter now - Bitcoin is out, it's here to stay, and it's gonna take over." So, one isn't supposed to question it in any way, including whatever entity or agenda might be behind or complicit with it.

Get the tech geeks to early-adopt it by hyping it as "cool," and then get everyday people by its "convenience," and so on and so on. When it's proven, or belligerently claimed, to be a source of funding for "terrorism," then some governmental entity will muscle-in and usurp it toward a political power-grab.

I personally think Bitcoin is a great idea and a great tool - but whenever I'm told to just accept something as "good," to accept the inevitability of its eminence, and to NOT question it, I can't but feel suspicion about it.

David Moon said...

> I personally think Bitcoin is a great idea and a great tool

As do I. And like any tool, it of course could be used for good, bad, or neutral purposes.

The hammer is a tool, useful in the making of homes and ships. It can also be used as a weapon oneself just as readily as it can be used as an offensive weapon to attack someone - even an innocent person. Despite this, I would still label the hammer as being a "good" tool, in that we are better off with it than without it. And going further, while I do now know *why* the first hammer was made - perhaps to open a coconut to feed a child or to open a rival's skull - that is irrelevant to me, my usage of the tool, or my opinion of the net benefit of the tool.

Many people have felt suspicious about bitcoin for many reasons. The paper and the underlying code, because it is open source, has been raked through various coals of all types (http://www.businessinsider.com/dan-kaminsky-highlights-flaws-bitcoin-2013-4) in an attempt to find known backdoors or simply to enrich themselves. So far, nobody has managed to "hack" bitcoin or compromise the core of it in any way. So if there is some sort of secret hole or door, then it has gone unnoticed by pretty much everyone in the cryptography and security world - and they have every economic-based incentive to discover it as to do so could return millions - even billions of dollars. Thus, I am not as suspicious of the origins of bitcoin as, like the hammer, the motives of its creator in no way obligate me towards its usage.

Anonymous said...

Not sure if anyone still tracks comments from 2 years ago...but I got a bitcoin from this guy and now it's worth over 4k!! I wish I'd bought more.