Virginia community bank inks partnerships to enable Bitcoin purchases at its ATMs

A community bank in Virginia is now offering bitcoin purchases and redemptions as an option at its automatic teller machines (ATMs), according to the Virginia-based newspaper the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Cryptocurrency ATMs have been in the United States since 2013. But Blue Ridge Bank, based in Charlottesville, Virginia, appears to be the first U.S.-based community bank to let users obtain and redeem bitcoin from their ATMs. 

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Blue Ridge Bank offered crypto ATM services after noticing the high demand for bitcoin. “We try to be forward-looking with what we are doing and anticipate our customers' needs — both present and future customers," Blue Ridge Banks CEO Brian Plum told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. 

To offer crypto services, which started last week, Blue Ridge partnered with BluePoint ATM Solutions, a national ATM operator based in Woodstock, Virginia and Boston-based Bitcoin ATM software firm LibertyX. 

Users must have the LibertyX phone app and digital wallet in order to purchase Bitcoin from Blue Ridge. But anyone — not just Blue Ridge Bank customers — can obtain Bitcoin from the bank’s machines. According to the Times-Dispatch, the service allows customers to redeem bitcoin for U.S. dollars as well.

About Author

MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020 — joining just before bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering any and all crypto news but with a penchant toward NFT, metaverse, web3 gaming, funding, crime, hack and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.