The Australian city of Coolangatta has its first Bitcoin (BTC) ATM with built-in Lightning network capabilities. The new ATM has been installed at The Strand shopping center in Coolangatta and is now available for public use.
A Bitcoin Lightning ATM works quite similar to traditional Bitcoin ATMs, but saves a lot of time due to the instant transaction capabilities of the Layer 2 Lightning solution. It also allows you to buy very small amounts of BTC, mainly in Satoshi (sats). ), the lowest denomination of Bitcoin, where one satoshi equals 0.00000001 BT.
At the moment, cryptocurrency ATMs settle transactions directly on the blockchain. This has its own restrictions. For example, operators had to adapt to transaction batching when miner fees on the Bitcoin network rose sharply between 2017 and 2018.
In practice, this means that even if a user buys bitcoin through an ATM, it is not transmitted immediately. The operator has processes that wait for other users in the ATM network to use the machines before grouping and sending transactions to multiple users at once in a bulk transaction. This problem can be largely solved with the help of a Lightning network.
Using Lightning, the transaction becomes immediate because the trader does not need to pool the funds; as soon as the cash is inserted, the user receives the payment via the Lightning network. While there is still some debate as to whether the fees would be significantly reduced, they are likely to be lower than a chain payment.
Related: Bitcoin ATM installs hit record low in May, biggest drop since 2019
The recent delivery of the Lightning-enabled Bitcoin ATM in Australia comes in the wake of Australia Overtakes El Salvador to Become 4th Largest Bitcoin ATM Hub in the world. Australia had 216 ATMs going into the year 2023.
The total number of crypto ATMs worldwide is 38,602, of which 6,071 were installed in 2022 alone.
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