Cash Out

TAP BUY OR SELL.

The first permanent public Bitcoin ATM installation launched at Waves Coffee House in Vancouver on 29 October 2013.

A customer reaches for a banknote while the coffee machine hums behind her. Outside, the illustrated city is wet and blue; inside, a bright screen lights her face. The surprise is small and immediate: something held in a digital wallet has become cash she can take away. No vault or trading floor is needed, just a new machine in an ordinary coffee shop.

On 29 October 2013, a Robocoin kiosk launched at Waves Coffee House in downtown Vancouver. Operated by Bitcoiniacs, it marked the first permanent public Bitcoin ATM installation. Earlier demonstrations had shown the idea at conferences; this machine put it somewhere people could walk in, order a drink and try it for themselves.

The kiosk worked in both directions. Customers could exchange cash for bitcoin or sell bitcoin and collect cash. A phone reader and a separate palm scanner formed part of its unusual hardware. In a launch interview, Robocoin chief executive Jordan Kelley described the simple choice: tap buy or sell. The woman here demonstrates the cash-out side; she is a fictional customer, not a portrait of the first person to use it.

This moment gave an online currency a familiar physical doorway. The machine did not create bitcoins or turn them into metal coins. It connected a digital balance with a cash transaction, while the cafe around it carried on serving coffee. That ordinary setting is the point of the picture: a new way to exchange money appearing between the counter, the cups and the next person in line.