The easiest way to find a bitcoin ATM near you — CoinATMRadar mobile app
Hello, my name is Sarah, and I’m the mobile applications product manager at CoinATMRadar. We are constantly working to improve things to make finding bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies ATMs (aka BATMs, BTMs or CTMs) and various other offline exchange locations (non-ATMs) easier.
Recently there was a large mobile application update, which I would like to cover in this post.
Types of services
To better understand the new mobile application structure, it is good to know how we categories all services. There are three main types, which are described in our FAQ:
- ATM — a dedicated machine, which enables solely cryptocurrency exchange operations;
- Teller — an offline locaiton, where one can come and exchange crypto / cash in person;
- Other — all other services and locations, that facilitate crypto exchange transaction offline, but don’t fall into one of above categories. Usually, those are some kind of network of devices or retailers, that additionally to other functions also fulfill a front-end role for an online exchange service. In this case, transaction doesn’t happen directly at the place, but instead user buys a top-up for his account balance or a voucher or code, which is converted to cryptocurrency online later. Also such a network of locations usually pre-exist before starting support of crypto transactions (e.g. a terminals network) and then some service utilizes those for a purpose of exchange as well.
On the website you can easily switch between various services by using the map settings:
But let’s jump to the mobile application and see how it works there.
Mobile Application flow
All description below applies to mobile app version 3.1.0 an higher. Currently only Android version has been updated, but similar iOS update is planned and on the way.
Country Download
When app starts the user can select and download a map for each country of interest.
With new search bar it is much easier to find a needed country in the list:
All countries are split into two blocks: “Downloaded” and “Available”. Initially all countries are in “Available” section, but once a country is downloaded it is moved to “Downloaded” block on top of the list.
A new feature added since v.3.1.0 is an option to delete a country that was previously downloaded. This is useful when you go on vacation and temporarily would like to navigate locations in a particular country, but once returned, you don’t need to track this data anymore. To do this — click and hold on any of the downloaded countries in the list and a context menu will appear. It is possible to force refresh data there or remove the country data from device (can be downloaded later again if needed):
Map
When the country data is downloaded, user can navigate to the map page:
If geolocation is enabled, then current position will be automatically be zoomed-in and machines / tellers around will be displayed. The app can be used without geo location enabled, in this case the user will need to navigate to the area of interest manually.
Filters
New in v.3.1.0 was adding a fitler block in the top menu, where one can additionally define a cryptocurrency of interest (in the past versions of the application it was only possible to select a type of location and transaction direction (buy or sell)):
Search for a location now became much easier. After clicking “Apply” the map will display only the locations, which satisfy the selected conditions.
Detailed ATM page
To make it more visible, we also added a table on each detailed page, where it is visible which coins are supported and also which directions:
Near me locations
Additionally to map, user can find bitcoin ATM locations nearby. There is a dedicated Nearme page inside mobile app for this purpose:
This is a list of 20 closest locations to current position. In filters one can also restrict a list of particular types of locations (ATM or Teller) and also limit to particular crypticurrency and direction. This this is the same filter as for the map and conditions will automatically transition on Nearme search.
In settings (three-dot menu on top right) user can switch between “kilometers” or “miles” display. By clicking each of the listings, the details will be displayed about particular location.
Other services
We brought other services into a separate page, as it became not affordable to download all detailed locations for each service (some has more than 100K locations) and this was an issue for many app users, as download took too long.
Instead, now Other services are displayed on a separate page, where user can click “Show” and see more details about the service incl. supported cryptocurrencies and transactions:
When the button “Go To Map” is clicked, user is redirected to the main website and can see a map of detailed locations there. On top menu it is still possible to filter other services by coin and direction, and all other services are structure per country where they are present to make navigation easier.
We hope these improvements will make the search of bitcoin ATM locations easier and more intuitive. Please send any improvement requests (contacts can be found in each application and store listings), we’ll be happy to hear back from our users and add new features in the future.
App store listings:
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.coinatmradar.android
