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potatototoo99

So, is it possible to register a crypto ATM firm or is it just another way of banning things?

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A few years ago some of the ATM's I saw in the UK did have limits, KYC/AML, etc.

For any transaction worth a damn, you had to register an account online, provide ID, etc.

You would get a code via SMS when you used the machine to authenticate.

A few models had a built in passport scanner type thing and webcam, another had a fucking fingerprint reader.

It was pretty much the same level of KYC/AML you needed to transact at Coinbase or Kraken, but you could input or receive actual paper cash, which seems to have upset the regulator so those machines went away as well as the no-KYC ones.

> It was pretty much the same level of KYC/AML you needed to transact at Coinbase or Kraken, but you could input or receive actual paper cash, which seems to have upset the regulator so those machines went away as well as the no-KYC ones.

I don't think most of them have any kind of Chainalysis setup or that would kill the margins for most of the operators. Isn't it basically just a license scan, SMS code, and daily/monthly limits?

Why would they need Chainalysis? Is this just a UK thing? In US Kraken sells monero, which has limited to no chainalysis in theory; clearly it must not be a regulatory requirement.

No country has it as a specific regulatory requirement. In the US it is vaguely called maintaining an “adequate compliance program.” Blockchain analysis software is likely to be considered an important part of a compliance program by the government, especially when they are in the middle of a crackdown and new DoJ guidance is big on prosecuting this kind of thing (especially prosecuting individual compliance officers for AML failures). Pretty sure Kraken allowing XMR is a source of tension between them and governments too.

This all seems bizarre to me. I could go buy gold today with cash, melt it down to remove the serial numbers, and no one would have a fucking clue where it came from or where it is going. And it'd be way more reliable as a store of value and easy to exchange anonymously across borders.

You have to file export declaration when moving more than $2500 of anything out of the country (except personal stuff for vacations or whatever). You also have to declare gold when you enter if it's over a certain amount. Vague rules in the CFR (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/31/1020.210) based off vague laws from the 70s and 80s are the basis of billions of dollars in fines collected by the government every year. This vagueness makes it possible for them to continually shift the goalposts without an act of congress, i.e. what passes for a bank compliance program in 2023 is much different than what passed in 2005 even though none of the underlying statutes have changed very much.

I assumed they went away because they combined the fat markups of bitcoin ATMs with the KYC inconvenience of Coinbase.

You could but noone has managed it successfully. I imagine these ATMs were heavily used for money laundering/illict reasons, so probably with the KYC requirements the FCA requires the operators knew there would be no business and didn't bother applying.

Why would you pay punitive fees to an ATM operator to get bitcoin if you could just deposit the cash in your bank and buy 'normally' for many % less with a card/bank transfer?

How could someone apply aml/kyc without removing all the actual purpose of a crypto atm?

The haircut is so large on those machines that the only use cases at the moment are financial crimes.

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