The world's largest company by revenue, Walmart, has entered into selling cryptocurrency Bitcoin in a pilot programme by hosting the ATM-like machines of Coinstar, a crypto wallet and crypto exchange company.
According to CoinDesk, Shoppers can purchase the cryptocurrency at Coinstar machines inside the Walmart’s cavernous big box stores. A CoinDesk editor verified that the service works, buying a small amount of BTC at a Pennsylvania Walmart on Oct. 12.
Walmart communications director Molly Blakeman told CoinDesk via email -
Coinstar, in partnership with Coinme, has launched a pilot that allows its customers to use cash to purchase bitcoin,There are 200 Coinstar kiosks located inside Walmart stores across the United States that are part of this pilot.
Walmart shoppers who buy bitcoin at the Coinstar kiosks will be given a voucher that they must then redeem for bitcoin on Coinme — each bitcoin purchase carries a total of 11% in fees: transaction fee of 4% and a cash exchange fee of 7%, according to Coinstar.
Coinstar® is the global leader in self-service coin counting with 23,000 kiosks in North America, Europe, and Japan. More than 800 billion coins have been processed since Coinstar’s inception in the early 1990s. In the United States, consumers can convert their change to cash, a no-fee eGift card, or donate to charity at supermarket, mass merchant, drug store, and financial institution kiosk locations.
To recall, in 2018 Indian crypto assets and blockchain startup Unocoin also unveiled India's first cryptocurrency ATM by installing one at Kemp Fort Mall in Bangalore. But it was seized by police authorities as cryptocurrencies was banned by central bank RBI, at that point of time though the real picture is still ambiguous.