Chicago-based company Athena Bitcoin announced a plan to install about 1,000 ATMs for the purchase and sale of bitcoins in El Salvador. This Thursday, one of them was installed in a shopping center in Antiguo Cuscatlán, near the capital. Eric Gravengaard, CEO of Athena Bitcoin, explained that transactions can already be made at the ATM, and gave a demonstration of the process for buying the cryptocurrency. He added that they hope to import a "couple of hundred" more ATMs in the coming months. According to a statement from GamePlan, the company that acquired Athena in February 2020, at that time the ATM network of this firm then reached 100 terminals in the United States and Latin America.
In El Salvador, Athena already had two ATMs of this type in operation, one on El Zonte beach —of the same company— and another in El Tunco —of another operator—, in the department of La Libertad, since recently More than two years this cryptocurrency is used in that area to buy and sell products and services. The expansion of ATMs is carried out before the new law that gives legal and forced currency to cryptocurrency in El Salvador comes into force next September. In its article 7, it establishes that "every economic agent must accept bitcoin as a form of payment when it is offered to him by whoever acquires a good or service."
For the purchase of bitcoin through these ATMs, the user must pay a percentage to the operating company of the terminal. The same will happen when someone wants to convert bitcoins to dollars. Authorities said that percentage was under analysis.
