A curious ATM takes in money for cryptocurrency

Royce Calamaan runs a Honolulu convenience store that sells all kinds of ordinary consumer products, but also something that’s not visible and has a value that can be hard to fathom.

Chips, candy, saimin and soap are among items on shelves while coffee, fruit and bentos are on countertops at the Marco Polo Mini Mart.

The unusual item, on the floor near the end of an aisle, is an orange-and-black machine that dispenses digital currency.

Calamaan tapped a series of screen buttons on what looks like an ATM, flashed the machine a QR code from his phone, slipped a $20 bill into a slot and became the owner of 0.04334 of Ethereum that now resides in a digital wallet.

“I pretty much just moved paper money into digital currency,” Calamaan explained.

The machine selling 10 cryptocurrencies for cash is about a week old and the first in Hawaii operated by a company claiming to be the largest “crypto ATM provider” in the world, CoinFlip.

Cris Laurie drove to the McCully store from her home in Moanalua to send a merchant $1,505 of Bitcoin for a purchase, and said the machine is the only cryptocurrency ATM in Hawaii to her knowledge.

CoinFlip, which charges customers a 7% transaction fee, anticipates establishing at least 25 more machines around Oahu within the next year. In Hawaii, CoinFlip doesn’t dispense dollars in exchange for cryptocurrency, but it hopes to be able to do so in the future.

The initiative by the Chicago-based company represents an attempt to reestablish what a few years ago appeared to be a fledgling trend in Hawaii. The trend died out after a handful of early operators disappeared amid a murky regulatory scene for an industry that exposes consumers to financial risks along with potential rewards from an often volatile product.

About 7,500 different cryptocurrencies have been created, according to CoinMarketCap, and their values fluctuate continually.

Understanding the value of these digital products can be difficult, as about 20 were recently worth less than 1 cent per unit while four were worth over $10,000 a unit.

According to coinatmradar.com, about 11,000 crypto ATMs exist worldwide. CoinFlip said it operates about 1,100 in the United States.

Few Hawaii residents likely were aware of the prior existence of such machines in the islands because they weren’t typically in high-profile locations such as shopping malls, supermarkets and major convenience stores where regular ATMs are common fixtures.

Perhaps the most high-traffic previous crypto ATM was at Shirokiya’s Japan Village Walk. Spots for five or so other machines included a couple of local vape shops on Oahu and a boutique on Kauai, according to online industry directories.

Manufacturers promote the machines as business opportunities for operators who typically pay property owners to host ATMs.

The machines also feature disclaimers to customers about risk, such as this snippet of a rather long warning on CoinFlip’s ATM screen: “The volatility and unpredictability of the price of cryptocurrency relative to fiat (govern­- ment issued) currency may result in significant or total loss.”

Another warning on the same screen advises customers about scams and reads, in part, “Have you been sent to this ATM to send money to your boyfriend, girlfriend, fiance, husband, or wife that you met online?”

Lamassu Industries, a manufacturer in Portugal that sells crypto ATMs for about $4,400 to $8,400, claims that revenue for machine owners from customer fees, which in some cases can be near 20%, averages about $20,000 a month and that some ATM owners receive over $300,000 a month.

One local business owner who hosted a crypto ATM a couple of years ago said he got rid of it after servicing issues, concern that it might be illegal and dismay over apparent scam victims.

“It was just a hassle,” said the business owner, who did not want to be identified because of lingering concern that the machines may have not been legal. “Believe it or not, we had tons of little old ladies sending money to Liberia.”

Iris Ikeda, commissioner of financial institutions at the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, said digital currency ATM operators may have to be licensed depending on how the electronic platforms and transactions are structured.

“There are so many variables to the ATM, we have been writing to companies and letting them know whether or not their activity needs a license,” she said in a statement.

Ikeda added that digital currency ATM operators may only sell currency that they own if they aren’t licensed.

Hawaii government leaders in recent years have struggled to accommodate digital currency trading while protecting consumers.

Operators of cryptocurrency exchanges, which are different from ATM operators, were effectively blocked from doing business in Hawaii in 2016 when the Division of Financial Institutions interpreted state law governing money transfer businesses as applying to virtual currency brokers. That interpretation subjected cryptocurrency brokers to licensing and asset reserve requirements that were too burdensome.

In August, however, the agency granted waivers to 12 brokerage firms under a two-year pilot project.

On Wednesday, PayPal announced that it would enable its customers to buy, hold and sell four cryptocurrencies from their accounts, and that by early next year customers will be able to use their digital currency to pay merchants, though merchants would receive funds converted to fiat money at no fee.

Calamaan said he got interested in Bitcoin as an investor about three years ago, and around that time arranged to host a crypto ATM at his store in the Marco Polo condominium tower.

“It was more a novelty,” he said. “People were hesitant about it.”

That initial ATM operator disappeared after only about six months. But now Calamaan said more consumers understand digital currencies, so he jumped at the chance when CoinFlip contacted him.

CoinFlip, which operates in 43 states, said the regulatory uncertainty in Hawaii and logistics of doing business in an island state were factors on the timing of the company’s expansion here.

“Hawaii is a whole different animal,” CoinFlip CEO Daniel Polotsky said. “We wanted to make sure everything is done correctly.”

Polotsky said digital currency ATMs are becoming more mainstream, with some in supermarkets and major convenience store chains as CoinFlip nears 1 million customer transactions totaling $1 billion.

“We want Bitcoin to be available to everyone,” he said. “We make things super, super easy.”