A Bitcoin ATM spat cash all over a busy London subway station after a customer withdrew more than it could handle
- A Bitcoin ATM at a busy London tube station spat out cash into the air and onto the floor as commuters passed by.
- A video of the moment shows the man who withdrew the money waiting to collect the banknotes in his bag, but ending up watching them gather on the floor because they came out of the ATM so quickly.
- A security guard is seen protecting the money on the ground as commuters pass by.
- The company that made the machine said it wasn't broken, but was likely struggling to deal with the large amount of money it was asked to withdraw while using just £20 ($25) notes.
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A video shows the moment a Bitcoin ATM spat cash all over a busy subway station in London when a customer withdrew more than the machine could deal with.
Footage shows commuters pass through London's Bond Street tube station as the ATM fires out £20 ($25) banknotes. The notes come out of the machine so quickly that they fall in different directions on the ground, creating a wide pool on the station floor.
The man withdrawing the money is seen with an open bag that looks to be filled with the bank notes under the machine, but many fall on either side of the bag. He then rearranges the fallen notes into a pile with his feet, looking sheepish and occasionally laughing as they continue to fly out of the machine.
The video, which was first shared on Reddit and republished by MailOnline, also shows a security guard standing in front of the piles of cash, preventing commuters from trying to take it.
Adam Gramowski, the CEO of Bitcoin Technologis, the Polish company that operates the machine, told The Sun that the machine had not malfunctioned and decided to randomly give out money.
Instead, the ATM was likely struggling to dispense such a large amount of money in such small notes, he said.
It's not clear how much the unnamed customer asked to withdraw. Bitcoin ATMs let people sell Bitcoins for cash, as well as buy Bitcoins.
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Gramowski told The Sun: "As you can see there is a bag in the front of ATM. However our ATMs support large transactions and it is fair to say that a larger, redesigned presenter would be a good solution," referring to the part of the ATM dispenser that presents cash to the customer.
"Our customer was not particularly careful, although the ATM should be redesigned to cope better with small denominations used in the UK," he added.
£20 notes are the second-largest bank notes used in the UK.
While the £50 note is in circulation, it is rarely used and was at risk of being scrapped until the UK Treasury decided to redesign it instead in 2018.