'World's first' bitcoin ATM opens in Canada Tuesday Oct 29,2013

Three young entrepreneurs opened an automated teller Tuesday Oct 29,2013 in Vancouver, calling it the world's first ATM able to exchange bitcoins for any official currency.

The machine, delivered to Vancouver by Robocoin, an American manufacturer, stands against a wall of a popular coffee shop, and resembles an ordinary cash ATM. However, instead of cash transactions it swaps Canadian dollars for bitcoins, the virtual currency of the Internet invented in 2008 by an anonymous computer scientist known only by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto

Customers lined up here Tuesday Oct 29,2013 to use the ATM, then used their smart phones to buy coffee and muffins at the Waves coffee shop. They withdraw cash equivalents (the conversion rate is currently about one bitcoin for $200) from their bitcoins, or deposit cash bills. The machine transfers the money on the Internet via the Canadian VirtEx exchange.