Robocoin has announced plans to install one of its Bitcoin machines in the West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada, the largest such mall in North America and one of the largest in the world.
More than 30 million people visit the mall each year. This is prime real estate for Robocoin’s machine.
Local company BitNational will be the machine’s operator. Company co-CEO Drew Glover noted that mall executives were excited to have a Bitcoin ATM. “We sent them a one-page letter regarding the current status of bitcoin, and we had an interview with them in two days,” he said.
Las Vegas-based Robocoin just launched its first ATM in the United States in Austin, Texas, earlier this month, and the company also installed the world’s first Bitcoin ATM in Vancouver. That first machine did $100,000 in business in the first eight days and almost a $1 million in the first month.
The machine is slated to launch February 27 at 2 p.m. local time. CoinDesk notes that no businesses in the mall currently accept Bitcoin at the moment … but that’s not really the point, is it?
BitNational has instead said that its business goals include expanding customers’ knowledge of Bitcoin in general, hoping to grow that base so business opportunities can emerge. That includes expanding its ATM network for now, Glover admitted.
Upcoming BitNational ATM locations have not been set yet, but Glover suggested that malls will not be their only domain.