The “HOT” Bitcoin ATM My Day

By Dr. J. Ester Davis
Esterdavis2000@gmail.com

We had three graduations this year in my family.  Two college one high school.  My one granddaughter, grandson number 4 and a favorite grandcousin. To add more ‘drums beats’ another grandcousin had an art opening at the Galveston Art Museum in the midst of the graduations.  All three graduations were so different and exciting.  Of course being a scholar of the last generation, I was looking for a program at the in person graduations.   No programs. Just a bar code for your cell phone to scan if you wanted a program.  No alphabetical order of names.  Graduates, especially at my granddaughter’s services were ad hoc.  Graduates could sit where they wanted in any order they chose on the floor of the stadium.

I write on anything . . . all the time.  So, I wrote on a napkin “the world will change more in the next 12 months than in the last 12 years”.

A couple days after the graduation frenzy, I walk into an upscale grocery store and Ooh!!!… W.H.A.T  is this?  A Bitcoin ATM, for your digital wallet, next to the ATM for your debit card money clip. Yes, that is correct, the Bitcoin ATM has hit mainstream status. At the moment, to use a Bitcoin ATM you need a smartphone.  Insert ‘ole fashion cash’ into the ATM Bitcoin and you receive the same amount of Bitcoin for your digital wallet.  Of course minus the hefty handsome transaction fee which is deducted from your debit card/bank account.

The story of the Bitcoin is fascinating and futurist.   This whole thing started about a decade ago.  Here is what I minimum ally understand.  The Bitcoin only exist on a series of computers. There is no bank, no federal reserve. It is a code. The fantasy is that some mainstream corporations are accepting them for payment; i.e. Dish Network, PayPal and some online businesses.  The most famous story is about Tesla and Elon Musk, the electric car company who spent close to $2 million dollars in January.

The Bitcoin is not for everybody.  At the moment, some crooks are using it for SCAMS primarily targeting seniors and online romance seekers.  But I believe it does have a future.  Depending on how many people invest on any given day, the value rises. Now apply that theory to real estate, antiques and islands.  The one word I would use today for the concept is ‘erratic’ . . . slightly related to a slot machine.  Back to the Tesla idealist, a little tweet from Musk recently ignited a serious drop in two hours, but if you keep following the industry several years ago, it was worth $500 to $50,000 in early May, 2021.

That’s enough power for 32,000 ATM’s to chime in on the fun of skill, speculation,temptation and anticipation. “The world will change more in the next 12 months than the last 12 years”.

Send me an email (or 214.376.9000)about your appetite for the future of money. Be careful out there.