A rare addition to Russia’s Bitcoin ATM count has appeared in the country’s second city of St. Petersburg.
The machine, operated by cryptocurrency exchange Bitlish, provides Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Zcash purchasing facilities with an automatically-updating exchange rate.
The machine can be found in a shopping center at Sredny Prospekt V.O. 36, located on the city’s Vasilevsky Island.
The installation is likely a result of Bitlish’s push for more ATMs in Russia, which due to legal concerns has hosted only a couple of machines. The exchange demonstrated its fleet of ATMs at a recent conference in Moscow, but as yet no official information is available regarding any of their locations. No Russian machines are currently on CoinATMRadar’s listings.
A request for confirmation and more information about the ATM did not immediately return a reply from Bitlish.
The installation in itself is a sign of changing times regarding Russia’s relationship with cryptocurrency. Having previously de facto banned it as a “surrogate” alternative to the ruble, the country’s central bank this year signaled a new perspective. Constructive regulation, it said, would be its policy going forward, and an all-out ban would be counterproductive if even possible.