Golix, the first cryptocurrency exchange in Zimbabwe and currently its largest, has activated the first Bitcoin ATM in the country.
The exchange aims to make Bitcoin’s ecosystem more accessible to people who may not know how to use the more sophisticated full node or wallet systems available on the internet.
“After realizing that the public is still struggling to understand or in some cases access Bitcoin, we felt that the Bitcoin ATM would be a huge and necessary step towards engaging people on how they can use cryptocurrencies for their daily business,” Yeukai Kusangaya, product manager at Golix, stated for local publication The Herald Business.
The ATM works by automatically exchanging money deposited into it, allowing users to buy and sell Bitcoin with ease. When someone buys cryptocurrency, it is “wired” directly to their wallet.
Nhlalwenhle Ngwenya, a spokesperson for Golix, said the ATM’s simple interface would hopefully bring convenience to “first-time users of cryptocurrencies, and the unbanked without access to digital funds.”
If someone doesn’t have access to a Bitcoin wallet, they could simply generate one by using the ATM interface, according to Kusangaya.
Interestingly, the machine appears designed to work with US dollars as opposed to Zimbabwean dollars. This might be due to the volatility of the local currency, which has led to hyperinflation in recent years. Many have jokingly pointed to the fact that Zimbabwe is quite literally a country of trillionaires.
Because of more recent government policies to “dollarize” the economy, banks have experienced significant issues with liquidity. Golix’s ATM might help by bringing another intermediary currency into the fray.
There is apparently no lack of demand for cryptocurrency in Zimbabwe as Golix records a monthly trading volume of $600,000.
As recently as last year, Bitcoin’s bull run caused the price of the digital asset to double in the country, and the exchange saw a sudden peak in demand accelerated by a military coup that removed President Robert Mugabe from his seat of power.
Golix might have installed this single ATM as part of a beta run to determine whether a full-scale teller infrastructure is feasible. If enough people use this ATM, the exchange may scale up the experiment, making Zimbabwe one of the few cryptocurrency-friendly countries in Africa.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
