CryptoDiggers, cryptoATM operator in Slovakia has recently launched sale of anonymous cryptocurrency Monero in its ATMs in the capital city. Crypto and privacy enthusiasts thus can now buy Monero directly into their personal crypto wallets in all ATM locations – Danubia Shopping Centre, Fresh Market, Avion Shopping Park and Bory Mall.
The introduction of the new cryptocurrency offer in ATMs is especially valuable because Monero operates on different ground compared to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Monero seems quite hard to obtain through traditional exchanges because of the lack of stable infrastructure. Enabling to buy Monero via crypto ATM was not an easy task to undertake.
Introducing Monero into crypto ATM
“We had spent much time studying Monero with only the test version of wallet at that time which was published on Github gradually. Developers had not published a lot of information on the web. We had to prepare it all by ourselves,” says Peter Bešina, co-founder of CryptoDiggers.
CryptoDiggers use crypto ATM machines produced by Czech company, General Bytes, which ranks among the best in this industry. “General Bytes provides open platform for backend that we maintain by ourselves with our own hardware. It was good that many java and php classes have been published for the past weeks. We were able to use them and these helped speed up certain parts of the implementation process.”
Unlike Bitcoin, Monero is one of the cryptocurrencies wherein almost everything needs to be built up from scratch. “Even sending payments from wallet works differently and it can take some people by surprise. Anonymity and freedom require radical changes not only in thinking, but in technology as well,” P. Bešina pointed out.
Euro to Monero for now only
Even though General Bytes ATMs are often two-way, meaning they enable buy and sell of cryptocurrency, it is only possible to buy Monero for fiat state currency at this time. Can anonymous cryptocurrency fans live to see the option to exchange monero for euro?
“We are dependent on General Bytes and their coin explorers with regards to other means of transactions. We have not achieved this part by our own, because it requires a lot of time spent on building and maintaining per currency’s own blockchain explorer. It is not possible to clone it out in any way in Monero as in Bitcoin and its derivatives,” P. Bešina explains.
CryptoDiggers ATM not in regional cities
Cryptodiggers is the largest cryptoATM operator in Slovakia, though all machines are located in the capital city, Bratislava. There is another installation that has been prepared in recently established Paralelna Polis place in Bratislava near Račianské mýto.
The company does not plan to bring ATMs out of Bratislava at this time, even though they had been toying with this idea. “We were considering other cities also, but we ran into problem of trust and cash-flow management here. We don’t want to allow third parties to enter the system nor companies like G4S, which could make the ATMs operation more expensive.”
Paying with cryptocurrencies still rare
The business of CryptoDiggers is not only in Bitcoin ATM machine operation. The service called CD Pay provides payment gateway for online shops striving to accept cryptocurrency payments. Even though the number of customers is growing, people are still not keen to pay with cryptocurrencies because of high volatility and misunderstanding of Satoshi’s idea, says Bešina.
“If people will not start using these coins for payments (with step-by-step buying up) it can bring sad future for cryptocurrencies. Now we want to fully dedicate our time to CD Pay solution since there had not been much time in the last months for applying innovation and developing other planned improvements. We want to introduce other cryptocurrencies, and Monero will be one of them.”