A total of 215 kiosks in North Carolina now allow customers to purchase bitcoin using cash, as long as they have a valid mobile phone number, a valid state-issued identification card, and any quantity of U.S.
The opening of the kiosks, which are placed at the front of grocery stores like Food Lion and Harris Teeter, comes after the Coinme team received approval and licensure to operate as a digital currency exchange in North Carolina.
The Coinstar kiosk prints a voucher, which new or existing Coinme users redeem on the company’s mobile application or through its website, once they’ve signed into or newly created an account and redeemed the voucher.
Bergquist said bitcoin follows a four-year cycle, noting that based on his experience, the cycle correlates with bitcoin’s halving events, a term given to the time when number of bitcoins released into circulation is cut by 50%.
One fluctuation occurred throughout 2011: bitcoin’s price jumped from $1 in April to a peak of $32 in June and then fell.
The cryptocurrency began 2013 priced at $23.40 per bitcoin, then rose to $220 at the start of April of that year, then fell by the middle of the month to $70, rising to $123.30 in October, and continuing to rise in December at $1,156.10.
“It also put it on the radar of governments and economists who began to think of developing their digital currencies.
The price rose again in 2020, which Bergquist said was in part due to investors purchasing bitcoin as they sought a hedge against inflation.