MoneyGram to Offer BTC at 17,000 U.S. Locations Via Coinme Tie-Up
3 min read
Are you a crypto enthusiast who likes to buy BTC with a fistful of cash? Well, you’re in luck. On Wednesday, MoneyGram announced a partnership with ATM provider Coinme that will nearly double the number of physical locations where people can buy BTC in the U.S.
The arrangement will see MoneyGram add the BTC service to around 12,000 locations starting this month, then another 5,000 locations in June.
The partnership is intriguing because it involves a tie-up between a company, MoneyGram, that specializes in one of the oldest financial technologies—wire transfers—and one that specializes in one of the newest forms of money.
This mix of old and new finance is reinforced by how the BTC purchases will work in practice. Specifically, they will require consumers to download the Coinme app, which will let them obtain a quote to buy or sell a certain amount of BTC. If they accept the quote, the consumer receives a code to lock in the rate. They can then present the code, which is good for five minutes, to a MoneyGram teller who will then finalize the transaction.
For many crypto users, the idea of buying or selling BTC—which is designed as money for the Internet—from a human teller may seem odd. But according to Coinme CEO, Neil Bergquist, there is plenty of demand for a such service.
In an interview with Decrypt, Bergquist noted that millions of Americans prefer to transact only in cash or are “unbanked,” meaning they lack access to traditional financial establishments for a number of reasons. For many of them, Coinme’s approximately 20,000 BTC ATMs are a natural fit. Now, the addition of the MoneyGram kiosks—many of which are located in WalMart stores—will not only provide easier access to crypto for these populations, but also offer a way for those lacking technological savvy to buy BTC too.
Bergquist also predicted that BTC will grow in popularity as way for immigrant diasporas to send money to relatives in their home countries. For this, the MoneyGram partnership is a natural fit since it has long been a popular option for remittances.
“This innovative partnership opens our business to an entirely new customer segment as we are the first to pioneer a crypto-to-cash model by building a bridge with Coinme to connect BTC to local fiat currency,” said MoneyGram CEO Alex Holmes in a statement.
The MoneyGram arrangement is also significant because it enables people not only to buy BTC for cash but to sell it for cash as well. Currently, the ATMs provided by Coinme—the country’s largest BTC ATM provider—and its smaller rivals let users buy BTC but not sell it. These include thousands of Coinstar machines, which allow people to redeem pennies and other loose change, but which recently integrated BTC purchases via a Coinme partnership.
The upshot of all this is that is BTC is likely to spread further into more neighborhoods that have had limited access to it, and potentially increase the currency’s overall transaction volume.
