Greece to receive 1,000 Bitcoin ATMs as trust in banks ‘long gone’

Today, many Greek businesses have failed to pay their suppliers and partners outside of the country due to the countries record high financial problems and the recent capital controls, which froze all bank accounts, credit cards and debit cards in the country for weeks. Bitcoin service provider and exchange Cubits has partnered with Greek bitcoin exchange BTCGreece to install 1,000 bitcoin ATMs and help small and medium sized businesses move money.

“We are creating the ecosystem of bitcoin and blockchain solutions in the Greek market.” BTCGreece founder Thanos Marinos told CoinTelegraph. “That will include the rollout of 1,000 ATMs and solutions for the e-commerce and tourism industry. Partnering with best of breed companies in the bitcoin space will enable us to provide the Greeks with solutions that will ease the difficulties of the capital controls.”

The Greek government still restricts the weekly withdrawal limit for bank accounts and debit cards to US$464.76 per week. To help small and medium sized companies send payments abroad, the two companies plan to develop a cross border payment system, which will allow small businesses to send payments quickly, at low cost.

Marinos:“Btcgreece and Cubits are offering a solution to the small and medium sized businesses to keep their operations, pay their invoices outside of Greece, pay for datacenter and servers, without the limitations imposed by the banks under capital controls.” „Also we will integrate some of the Greek charities onboard Cubits, as Cubits have done on a massive scale with the collaboration with Wikando,” added Marinos.

Additionally, bitcoin adoption in Greece is growing rapidly, he added. Individuals and business are beginning to recognize the advantages of bitcoin and its decentralized nature.

“Bitcoin adoption is happening and in a very fast pace,” explained Marinos. “Bitcoin in Greece is not just hype but a solution to day to day problems of people and businesses under capital controls. Also a key factor is that the trust for the traditional banking system is long gone and people are open to bitcoin.”

BTCGreece and Cubits are building a cross-border payments service for the Greek market. According to techcrunch.com, „The team is supporting voucher payments backed by bitcoin as well as access to point of sale terminals and ATMs. Essentially they are rebuilding financial transactions using bitcoin as the backing medium.”

“Cubits is in this for the long run, this is their priority and main focus,” said Tim Rehder, founder of Cubits.

The company currently has 15,000 wallets and 500,000 monthly transactions.