Bitcoin users in the UK and Sweden will soon have new ways to swap cash for Bitcoins.
In the UK, ZipZap, a global cash payment processor based in California, will make it possible to buy Bitcoins for cash in 28,000 different shop.
Thanks to a partnership with an anonymous local company, ZipZap will allow anyone physically in the UK to buy into the Bitcoin economy, starting in January. At the moment, ZipZap has about 700,000 pay locations worldwide where users can pay for online purchasers with cash.
Further details about ZipZap’s foray into the Bitcoin world will become available in 2014. As we have already reported, Russian Bitcoin users will have access to 240,000 cash-for-Bitcoin points within the same time frame.
In Sweden, Bitcoin exchange Safello will introduce its Bitcoin ATM at the STHLM TECH Meetup next Monday, December 9, in Stockholm.
The ATM, announced just last month and Sweden’s first, will be manufactured by Lamassu and cost approximately $5,000 to build.
Safello’s first site for the ATM will be the meetup itself; afterward, it plans to install it somewhere around Stockholm, though the exact location has not been specified.
However, don’t plan on going to Stockholm immediately and being able to use the ATM. There will be a multi-level Know Your Customer authorization protocol that users will have to go through on the Safello website before they will be able to use the ATM.
Safello itself has been growing by leaps and bounds. The company was founded in July, began trading Bitcoins in August, and is now introducing its first ATM.
Lamassu, for its part, has ATMs in 13 cities around the world. The first ever Bitcoin ATM, built by RoboCoin and installed in a Vancouver, Canada, coffee shop, saw $1 million in transactions during its first month.