There's a small three story mall in Hong Kong's Mong Kok district called "President Commercial Centre," (608 Nathan Road), which is home to a stunning ELEVEN Bitcoin OTC brokerages and two ATMs.
They trade in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether and pretty much any shitcoin under the sun, and it seems they really are quite active, judging from how many people were queuing up, leaving or entering these small shops. I suspect most trades are done through Tether on Tron on one side, and HKD cash on the other, but you can also trade USD, CNY, KRW, JPY, and probably more on request.
At least one of these shops says they also offer Lightning Network trades, but this option was not available today. I wonder who is using the ATMs, as they are significantly more expensive than the brokerages.
Neither the ATMs nor the brokerages will ask for ID for "smaller" amounts, which is typically anything smaller than US$2000. I did recently use a similar brokerage in Hong Kong to sell some sats over the Lightning Network, and I paid about ~1.6% in fees, less than my old bank would have charged me for a cash withdrawal.
Interesting
Those shops remind me of the Chung King Mansion
Somehow Chungking Mansions has a strong anti-Bitcoin policy, ATMs and OTC brokerages are not allowed there. Same goes for World Wide House in Central. So new malls are becoming the Bitcoin centers
first thought I had!
Interesting they are being used, here in the states all of our bitcoin atms are just collecting dust.
I wouldn't wish using a Bitcoin ATM on my worst enemy.
We got one nearby and i figured I'd throw $40 into it having never used it before.
According to the receipt market price was $60,171 at the time (4/30/24 at 5:20pm EDT) and they charged me 81,625.05 plus a $3 service charge 🤯 so that's over 40% of my $40 in fees alone, complete ripoff.
Right its like the payday lender of bitcoin
Yeah it was awful, I feel bad it's a face of Bitcoin for some people.
A pro move for "cash to BTC" is to use CashApp - you can deposit under $500 cash (iirc?) for a $1 charge into your CashApp account at places like Walgreens or Sheetz. Then you just swap to Lightning in CashApp!
Because question #1 after touching the screen: ENTER YOUR TELEPHONE NUMBER - for this reason, I hope they all fail.
Perhaps if the fee rates were not like a good 10% of the transaction, people would use them more?
Are LN ATM not a thing yet?
Oh great, thanks!
Might be en option for me when we peak, already plan to use Vietnam for the same purpose :-)
Fly out for a few days, get some photography and video done, return with a few k of fiat bills is the basic plan, or perhaps gold hehe
You travel everywhere! xP
Thanks! I wish I'd know that last time I was in Hong Kong.
Thank you for the report.
If your in Honolulu, Waikiki the Palama Markets and Palma
express all have atm's. open seven days a week.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cc6nmc_pszH/?img_index=1
It should be 21 :)
Wow, that's good news for Bitcoiners.
This is what we all need to see more and more.
Thanks @leo for your super cool updates about merchant adoption.
The only reason I am surprised by this is it would seem to over-saturate the market but hey if it works fantastic!
when you have Sats.. you can go everywhere,.,. as long you connected to internet,. your money is on the NODE #Zapping #BTC