People have bought or sold $100,000 in Bitcoins from a Vancouver ATM

A new Bitcoin ATM in Vancouver is off to a fast start, conducting $100,000 (Canadian) worth of transactions in its first eight days of operation. That's according to Robocoin, the firm that created the machine and hopes to see the equipment deployed in major cities around the world.

"Robocoin has finally made Bitcoin accessible," says Jordan Kelley, the company's CEO. Kelley says that so far approximately 80 percent of the machine's business has been people buying Bitcoins, while the other 20 percent has been people who wanted to sell their Bitcoins for cash. Robocoin says its machine is the first Bitcoin ATM in the world.

The machine is located at a Vancouver coffee shop called Waves Coffee. The machine is owned by another Bitcoin startup called Bitcoiniac. Kelley says the start-up has purchased five machines from Robocoin for $20,000 each. Bitcoiniac plans to deploy its machine in Toronto, Montreal, London, and Berlin. Kelley says a number of other cities, including Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, are slated to get Robocoin machines in early 2014. Read more >>