There's A Gold-Dispensing ATM on West 57th Street • Hacker News Board

Re: There's A Gold-Dispensing ATM on West 57th Street

#11

Post by mseebach » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 11:30 AM UTC

Killah911 wrote: post #9

ATM is a bit of a misnomer isn't it? Can you deposit gold into your "account" at the machine? If not then it's similar to any other sales kiosk (like the ones at the airport selling headphones)

I'm pretty sure "ATM" is in common use to describe machines that will only let you withdraw cash.

Re: There's A Gold-Dispensing ATM on West 57th Street

#12

Post by mjb » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 11:42 AM UTC

If you have some time, and are interested in culture, architecture, history or just New York from an interesting perspective, it's worth reading some more of Scouting NY. There's a whole lot of very interesting material there, and some nice photographs too.

Re: There's A Gold-Dispensing ATM on West 57th Street

#13

Post by logicallee » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 12:08 PM UTC

alistairjcbrown wrote: post #3

Conceptually, is this an ATM or a vending machine?

Practically, it depends on whether the markup is in line with the spread for street currency exchange, or in line with vending machine markup versus wholesale cost of goods.

Re: There's A Gold-Dispensing ATM on West 57th Street

#14

Post by iancarroll » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 12:45 PM UTC

Killah911 wrote: post #9

ATM is a bit of a misnomer isn't it? Can you deposit gold into your "account" at the machine? If not then it's similar to any other sales kiosk (like the ones at the airport selling headphones)

Most ATMs won't let you deposit anyway.

Re: There's A Gold-Dispensing ATM on West 57th Street

#15

Post by robin_reala » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 12:49 PM UTC

euroclydon wrote: post #4

Those silver American Eagles make a great, almost magical from the child's perspective, alternative to the lame-o paper dollar under the pillow when your kid looses a tooth, but I would recommend working your way up to them as it gets a little expensive, especially if you have more than one toddler.

It’d never occurred to me that you’d get a note for a tooth in the US. Would be an expensive habit in the UK to give notes away.

Re: There's A Gold-Dispensing ATM on West 57th Street

#16

Post by lifeformed » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 12:50 PM UTC

I don't understand these. What are people using it for? Is it just for novelty purposes, and as a promotional tool for gold as an investment?

Re: There's A Gold-Dispensing ATM on West 57th Street

#17

Post by mathattack » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 12:52 PM UTC

Killah911 wrote: post #8

LeonM wrote: post #6

I have seen more than one of these "vending machines" in Dubai. Interesting thing is that they constantly adjust the price of the gold bars as the price of gold fluctuates. I guess these machines need a permanent internet connection to receive the current gold price. Who will be the first to do a MITM and adjust the price to 0.001? ;)

You'd have to have quite a bit of inside info to do that & given hopefully the designers of the machine had enough forethought to not connect the thing to the open internet. To top that off they may even have programmed it to stop if the price variations get too crazy (99% drop may trigger it).

I expect that the commission they charge is fairly hefty too. They'd also need solid physical security.

Re: There's A Gold-Dispensing ATM on West 57th Street

#18

Post by phpnode » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 12:55 PM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #17

Killah911 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to have quite a bit of inside info to do that & given hopefully the designers of the machine had enough forethought to not connect the thing to the open internet. To top that off they may even have programmed it to stop if the price variations get too crazy (99% drop may trigger it).

I expect that the commission they charge is fairly hefty too. They'd also need solid physical security.

These machines likely contain very small inventories, the value of their contents is almost certainly exceeded by a typical ATM.

Re: There's A Gold-Dispensing ATM on West 57th Street

#19

Post by mathattack » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 12:58 PM UTC

phpnode wrote: post #18

mathattack wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect that the commission they charge is fairly hefty too. They'd also need solid physical security.

These machines likely contain very small inventories, the value of their contents is almost certainly exceeded by a typical ATM.

I would think it's less traceable though, no? This is not coming from any industry knowledge, but I would think that an ATM would know the bill #s, so if you stole it, the bills would be tagged. You can always melt the gold. But this isn't based on any practical knowledge.

Re: There's A Gold-Dispensing ATM on West 57th Street

#20

Post by brador » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 1:16 PM UTC

Someone in the comments: "what if someone files a chargeback on the card?". Any thoughts on this? By using the machine you've moved from a reversible transaction to an ireversible transaction. It looks ripe for scammers to abuse.

At least at a counter they'd have your face on cam, but with this they don't.