First Irish bitcoin ATM to open in Dublin

4 Mar 2014

The first bitcoin ATM in Ireland is to soon be installed in Dublin by indigenous bitcoin firm BitVendo.

Despite the online currency going through one of its most turbulent periods since it was established, the bitcoin ATMs that have appeared in countries like Canada, Finland and the US have caught the public’s attention. Now, one is to open in GSM Solutions on Upper Abbey Street in Dublin.

There are 170 bitcoin ATMs worldwide, with further demand expected to reach a high point in summer this year.

The small BitVendo team of five are looking to expand its ATMs to several locations in the UK and Ireland, the next city being Waterford. Originally, Hippetys Café in Temple Bar was intended to be its testing ground to judge public reaction and uptake of the service, but the location was later changed to the GSM Solutions store.

The first uses of the ATM will not be open to the general public but will rather be put through its paces by a team of selected beta testers via BitVendo’s Twitter page.

The company has also laid out its three-mission plan, which involves informing the public about bitcoin, making the currency more accessible, and finally to make it profitable.

The timing for the launch may seem to have come at an inopportune time, however, as one of the largest online exchanges for bitcoin, Mt Gox, was recently shut down after the company admitted nearly 850,000 bitcoins were lost or stolen as a result of a supposed hack against the website.

UPDATED Monday, 28 April 2014, 3.48pm: An earlier version of this article cited Hippetys Café in Temple Bar as the site for Ireland’s first bitcoin ATM. This was later changed to GSM Solutions on Upper Abbey Street and the article has been amended accordingly.

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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