MoneyGram Will Offer BTC At 17K Locations Across The US: Report

Moneygram will offer BTC at 17K locations across the US and will let people buy and sell the cryptocurrency for cash as we can see more in our latest Bitcoin news today.

The new deal will let people buy and sell BTC at the Moneygram physical kiosks and could also increase the use of BTC by immigrant and unbanked communities. According to the announcement, Moneygram will offer BTC at 17,000 locations in its physical kiosks in the US that will see the number of locations double. The arrangement will see the company adding BTC services to around 12,000 locations starting this month and then another 5000 locations in June.

The new partnership is quite intriguing because it involves a tie-up between companies such as MoneyGram that specializes in wire transfers and that specializes in the newest forms of money. The mix of old and new finances is reinforced by the BTC purchase that will work in practice and they will require consumers to download the Coinme app that allows people to obtain a quote to buy and sell a certain amount of BTC. If they accept the quote, the consumer receives a code to lock in the rates and they can present the code which is good for five minutes to the teller that will finalize the transaction.

For many users, the goal of buying and selling BTC that is designed as money for the Internet from a human teller could seem a bit odd but according to Coinme CEO, Neil Berquist, there is a lot of demand for these services. Bergquist noted that Americans prefer to transact in cash or are unbanked which means that they lack access to traditional financial establishments for plenty of reasons. One of them is that Coinme has about 20,000 BTC ATMs and they are a natural fit. The addition of the kiosks that are located in Walmart stores will provide easier access to crypto for the population but they also offer a way for those that lack technological savvy to purchase BTC too.

Bergquist predicted that BTC will grow in popularity as a way for immigrants to send money to relatives in their home countries. The partnership is a natural fit therefore since it has long been a popular option for remittances as CEO Alex Holmes said:

“This innovative partnership opens our business to an entirely new customer segment as we are the first to pioneer a crypto-to-cash model by building a bridge with Coinme to connect bitcoin to local fiat currency.”