I recently travelled to the UK to attend the DASH conference which was held from Sept 24-26. I left Hong Kong without exchanging a single GBP (UK currency). My plan was to use visa for the trip and in this day and age it shouldn't have been a problem.
However, one complication is that not all restaurants accept visa here, especially the nice kebab shops that only accept cash. I tried to withdraw cash with my Normal ATM card, only to get rejected. This is because I forgot to set the overseas ATM limit before I left, so I couldn't withdraw any cash.
Bitcoin ATM
With traditional ATMs out of the question, I decided to checkout some of the Bitcoin ATMs that I heard were in the area. I took a day trip to Brighton to try and locate them.
The first ATM was inside a burger joint. It was out of cash due to a previous user who drew out all the cash around 20 minutes before I got there. Guess there is a bit of use on these machines. I did have a nice chat with a crypto enthusiast there, so it wasn't a total loss.
The second ATM I found was in a corner shop. It only had the option of buying bitcoin though.
It should be noted that the exchange rates were quite poor on the machines. They were showing me around 2300 GBP for each bitcoin, which was about 400 GBP lower than the prices on that particular day.
TenX to the Rescue
I remembered that I brought my TenX card and I tried it at an ATM. To my surprise it actually worked and I was able to draw 40 GBP! There was meant to be 2.5 dollars of fees, but it seemed like they didn't charge me. The exchange rate was decent too!
Conclusion
Thanks to the world of crypto, I finally got my kebab
Resources:
More on the DASH conference can be found on my YouTube channel and you can find out more about my European adventures over on Steemit!
The future, love it
Cheers
the best
Thank you for a real life example of using Bitcoin. It is the first one I've read. Are there Bitcoin ATMs in the US?
looking in to ten x /bitpay, coinbase has the shift card now as well for US users
And this is in a first world country, where money is easily accessible, imagine it's usefulness in third world countries where access to a bank is hard. This is why it's gonna revolutionize everything..
The future is bitcoin
and yet they still don't believe me that the btc price will reach as high as 5000 USD by the end of the year ;)
This is exciting times for bitcoin. It's kind of surreal still that digital currency is starting to be adopted. Can't wait to see what the future holds!
Haha awesome! Glad you enjoyed your trip to the UK and got to enjoy one of our kebabs. Definitely come to Manchester at some point if you want to try some British curry!
This is Nice, it would be Great if it could be adopted especially with online stores also.... what do you think ?
nice
This is what the crypto scene is missing right now, mass distribution. There's far more "investors" and traders than the ones who actual support the movement of a decentralized monies. I'm from Canada, originally, where some shops were starting to adapt to bitcoin, but I moved to Thailand a 4 months ago and not surprisingly, nobody accepts bitcoin haha. But with OmiseGO and some big conferences being hosed in Bangkok, I think they'll catch up soon. I think this leaves room for 3rd world countries to play a bigger part in the future compared to countries banning and over-regulating cryptocurrencies.
Vienna has two machines where you can withdraw cash, the rest only allow for you to buy crypto. It does make life a bit easier when you can then directly convert your crypto for use in the non the non-crypto world. However, as you noted, the fees and exchange rates are poor. But that is to be expected; the middle men always want their pound of flesh.
But on the other hand, there are a number of shops and bars here in Vienna that directly accept crypto as payment for goods and services.