Recently, Athena Bitcoin revealed that it is planning to invest over $1 million to install cryptocurrency ATMs in El Salvador. The firm will install around 1,500 ATMs in the country especially where residents receive remittances from abroad.
The firm will hire staff and open an office to carry out operations in El Salvador, which in recently became the first nation to adopt bitcoin as legal tender.
Athena Bitcoin's director for Latin America Matias Goldenhörn said that President Nayib Bukele has presented the firm with a big challenge of 1,500 ATMs. And that the firm is determined to do that, but in phases. Athena Bitcoin is a private company and it wants to ensure that its development in the country is sustainable, he added.
Source: athenabitcoin.com
"Initially we are going to bring dozens of machines, (we'll) test what the business model is like in El Salvador, which will probably be different than in the United States," Goldenhörn added.
It is worth noting that the World Bank has said it will not assist El Salvador's bitcoin implementation because of environmental and transparency drawbacks, and the IMF has said it saw "macroeconomic, financial and legal issues" with the El Salvador's adoption of the cryptocurrency.
President Bukele has pitched the use of bitcoin for its potential to help Salvadorans living abroad to send remittances back home. Athena installed its first crypto-ATM in El Salvador's El Zonte beach, a year ago, some 50 km southwest of capital San Salvador, as part of an experiment dubbed Bitcoin Beach aimed at making the town one of the globe's first bitcoin economies.
Get the weekly commit
New blockchain deep dives every week.
