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When you think of thieves stealing an ATM, the mind jumps to the idea of an exciting crime. Maybe there’s a gunman, a getaway truck, and police chasing the perps down the highway. Well, as it turns out, stealing a SegWitCoin (BTC) ATM is such a nonevent, you might get away with it.
The theft happened at a mall in Lynnwood, Washington on August 3, reports MSN news. Shops in the mall had already closed, but the mall was still open for the public to come and go as they pleased. The two thieves casually approached the mall with a push cart dolly, walked up to the BTC ATM, loaded it up, and simply left the mall. Security cameras caught the whole thing, including them driving away in their moving van.
Were security guards chasing them? No. Did the police pursue in a high speed chase? Hardly. In fact, the crime wasn’t even noticed until a full week later. As reported by the Finnish site Ilta Sanomat, the ATM’s operator, CoinMe, didn’t even report the theft themselves; the police had to ask them if they noticed anything missing in the mall.
There can almost be no greater proof that BTC has lost all utility as a currency. Robbers can take a BTC ATM home with them and nobody will care.
BTC ATM thefts are becoming more common recently. In July, a more exciting variety of criminal organization staged a daring theft of a Birmingham, U.K. business, ransacking the establishment and attempting to steal their BTC ATM by using a rope attached to a car. In that incident, police indicated that the thieves didn’t steal anything of value.
There’s a few reasons why nobody would care if a BTC ATM had gone missing. If there was no fiat money in the machine at the time, or they are used to so little volume that they only check the machine every few weeks, it would be hard to notice. And most crypto users in the area might instead be turning to unregulated exchanges.
It does answer a fun question though. If anyone interrupted BTC service in your area, would anyone notice?
New to blockchain? Check out CoinGeek’s Blockchain for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about blockchain technology.
