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On January 23, 2021, the popular Youtuber Mambafx published a video of himself withdrawing $16,000 in cash from bitcoin ATMs. The video shows how it took multiple bitcoin ATMs to complete the process but by the end of the 17-minute film, Mambafx withdrew over $16k by selling bitcoin to the automated teller machines.

Mambafx is a popular popular trader on Youtube and various social media outlets. Just recently, he filmed a video about cashing out some bitcoin. In a previous Youtube video, Mambafx showed how difficult it was to cash out $5k in bitcoin (BTC) by leveraging cryptocurrency ATMs in his region. In his latest video shared with 86,000 channel subscribers, Mambafx successfully cashes out over $16k in bitcoin.

Of course, the process of cashing out $16,000 worth of bitcoin and turning it into cash wasnt easy. Even at the very first bitcoin ATM Mambafx visited that allows individuals to sell bitcoin said that it would let him take $15k. However, after reading the machines terms of service (ToS), Mambafx was only allowed to take out $2,900 in cash and all of it in $20 bills.

The trader also told his Youtube subscribers how BTCs price was on a tear and he had made a few thousand dollars extra before cashing out. Further, Mambafx said that he may even attempt to do a $100k withdrawal next and asked his fans if people would like to see that video in the future.

Despite the success in withdrawing $16k, Mambafx said he suffered 10% losses on these withdrawals when using these bitcoin ATMs. Just before visiting the first bitcoin ATM Mambafx said: So were gonna go into the mall, hopefully smoothly withdraw $20k, very f***ing unlikely, but were gonna try and see how many of the ATMs we gotta go to.

By the length of the 17 minute+ video, viewers can watch Mambafx being forced to stop at a myriad of bitcoin ATMs in order to stack $16k in cash. Interestingly, the machines only spit out 20 dollar bills and at one point while withdrawing $3k, Mambafx thought the money would get stuck in the slot.

By the end of the video, Mambafx managed to extract approximately $16,440 after using his smartphone app to find all the two-way bitcoin ATMs that would allow him to sell BTC. Despite paying a whopping 10% fee per withdrawal at the end of the video his bag was filled with an enormous amount of $20 bills. Its likely the well known Youtuber probably paid a few bucks for BTC network fees as well. The video also highlighted the fact that Mambafx had to wait a long time for network confirmations. The video shows Mambafx did manage to get a small amount of $100 bills during the process.

The two-way ATM often requires a single confirmation or more on the BTC network and it gives the customer a voucher in order to retrieve the cash after a confirmation completes. Mambafx sat around quite often waiting for the network confirmation and then withdrew his cash after the fact with his voucher. It definitely is a precaution for protecting the ATM from a replace-by-fee (RBF) scam, but makes for a long video of waiting when someone like Mambafx wants to withdraw $16k.

Selling $100k worth of bitcoin to crypto ATMs in order to withdraw all that cash could take an extremely long time for Mambafx to accomplish.

What do you think about Mambafx successfully selling $16k worth of bitcoin for cash? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Youtube, Mambafx,

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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Just before we get started make sure you register for Merryns interview with Baillie Giffords Charles Plowden. Its tomorrow dont miss it.

Today we attempt to address an argument that has resurfaced this week. That is the argument that bitcoin is somehow, for environmental reasons, unethical or immoral, because it uses a lot of electricity.

This is one of those arguments that never goes away and Im afraid it will never go away. Like Scottish independence or Brexit. Bitcoins a bubble is another one.

There are those who get bitcoin, see its potential and invest. There are those, such as Nobel-prize winning economists and Financial Times journalists, who are determined not to, and have been talking it down ever since it was a dollar ten years ago.

I guarantee that after this article bitcoiners will say yup, hes right, while nocoiners will find fault. But perhaps the undecided middle will find it instructive.

Bitcoin mining (the process by which bitcoins are produced and the network maintained) does consume extraordinary amounts of energy. Research by Digiconomist, shows energy consumption at 77.78 terawatt-hours per year. Thats comparable to the total energy consumption of the Netherlands, which has a population of 17.5 million people.

As a result, bitcoin mining operations gravitate to locations where energy is cheap. Iceland, with its abundant geothermal energy, was a hotspot for many years. Unwanted land close to nuclear power stations, especially in France, found use.

Half of global mining now takes place in one region of China Sichuan. Why? Hydroelectricity. During the rainy season, its electricity prices are as low as anywhere in the world. Roughly 5% of Sichuan bitcoin mining power comes from nuclear or burning coal. 95% is from renewables.

Research by Coinshares concludes that the Bitcoin network obtains 74% of its electricity from renewable sources. Many renewable energy generators are poorly located and underutilised, and thus, Bitcoin mining has become the only viable use for this electricity, says strategist Tatiana Revoredo.

Ironically, bitcoin makes better use of renewable energy sources than almost any other large-scale industry in the world. One company in Sweden is even recycling the heat generated from bitcoin mining to heat greenhouses.

Imagine a 3D topographic map of the world with cheap energy hotspots being lower and expensive energy being higher. I imagine Bitcoin mining being akin to a glass of water poured over the surface, settling in the nooks and crannies, and smoothing it out, says researcher Nic Carter of Coinmetrics.io.

But does it need to consume so much energy? Cant we just redesign it so it consumes less? The answer is no. Its power consumption is essential to its success.

What would Bitcoin really be worth if, in order to care for the world it set out to revolutionise, it changed its algorithm, or if miners unhooked themselves from cheap power? asks Bloombergs Lionel Laurent. The answer is very little. Laurent says that is a real price mystery. But it really isnt.

The reason bitcoin works so well is because it uses so much power. The reason the network is so strong is its electricity consumption. That is why it has been so successful. This power consumption is built in. It is called proof of work.

In 1997, a young English computer programmer by the name of Adam Back proposed a system to limit email spam and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks (DoS attacks are attempts, usually by hackers, to make a computer or a network unusable). Like many good ideas, the principle behind Backs idea was simple: he would make spam uneconomic.

Spam is predicated on being able to send large numbers of emails at low cost. But if each individual email involves effort and cost, then the spam becomes uneconomic, and so less likely to happen.

Backs idea was that emails should contain evidence that some kind of effort had gone into their composition a proof of work. An email that contains some kind of proof of work is an email that is less likely to contain spam. He developed a system called Hashcash. This added a textual stamp to the header of an email. It was proof that the sender had expended a certain amount of time in writing and sending the email.

In 2004, another computer programmer, Hal Finney, built on Back's proof-of-work system. Finney's idea was that each proof of work could be re-used, so that the work that went into them would not have to be repeated. He called it reusable proof of work.

If a Hashcash stamp could become a token denoting a certain amount of work, it would have some kind of value. In other words, Hashcash stamps could work as a form of digital money. Finney was highly regarded in the computer-programming world, but his system never saw any economic use. Until Satoshi Nakamoto, the as yet unidentified inventor of bitcoin.

When Nakamoto first designed bitcoin, one of his key ideas was that money should have a cost of production to it. If something takes effort, then it has value. If no effort goes into something, why on earth should it have any value?

Nakamoto wanted a system of money whose purchasing power increases over time, so he limited money supply to a maximum of 21 million coins. But he couldnt create the coins all at once. It had to be gradual. So how to create coins? How to disseminate them? And how to maintain the system? His ingenious solution to it all was what he called mining.

Just as gold and silver cost money to mine, so do bitcoins. However, you dont mine bitcoins with picks, shovels and drills, but with computers. You can set up a gold mining company and start digging in your back garden if you like but there is no guarantee youll find anything. Its the same with bitcoin. You can rig up some computers and start bitcoin mining, but there is no guarantee you will get some coins out of it.

But there is a chance you will strike gold or successfully mine coins. The better your gold or bitcoin mining operation the more powerful your drills, or you geological mapping, or your computers the better the chance youll strike gold or bitcoin. And the potential reward is such that people take the risk.

Every ten minutes, a block of new bitcoins is mined. And thousands of bitcoin mining operations around the world thousands of powerful computers compete with each other to mine the block and get the bitcoin reward. It is the combined power of all these computers that processes all the transactions and maintains the network.

Early bitcoins were easy to mine. There was not much competition, the network was small. But, as bitcoin evolved, the mining process grew more intense. The more intense the mining process, the more resilient bitcoin becomes.

In the past, to make something safe you would build a wall or a moat around it. Bitcoins blockchain is protected by a metaphorical digital wall, made secure by all the energy expended securing it. It would take an equivalent amount of energy to tear it down and as such is almost impossible to do. Bitcoin pioneer Nick Szabo calls this unforgeable costliness.

Money is stored energy. You expend energy working and in exchange receive money. You can then expend that stored energy later and receive in exchange a product or service somebody elses stored energy.

As humans have developed from the Agricultural Revolution, when we started to use animals to labour for us, to the Industrial Revolution, when we started to use machines, to todays digital age and computers, we have consumed more energy per capita. Energy consumption is part of progress. Everything requires energy. Even the energy required for a simple Google search is enough to power a lightbulb for several minutes. And as human beings have progressed we have found better means to provide that energy.

Bitcoin is a digital asset, minted from energy. It is stored digital energy. That is why it has value. Bitcoins electricity consumption is not a fault its a feature.

You might think that another persons activity is a waste of energy. They might not think so. It is subjective. Bitcoiners will say that bitcoin mining is an extraordinarily good use of power. What you get in exchange is a monetary network that is extraordinarily robust, permissionless, censorship free and resistant to state actors. Nocoiners will say it is an unethical waste.

And then theres the fact that that bitcoin network consumes much less electricity than existing fiat systems, which have enormous and far less efficiently used electricity requirements to power their banking infrastructure, not to mention associated political and military activities. Dont get me started on government waste.

Bitcoin: The Future of Money? (2014) by Dominic Frisby available in paperback, on Kindle, and in audiobook, at Amazon.

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Bitcoin does consume a lot of energy but here's why it's worth it - MoneyWeek

The promise of Bitcoin remains intact because its design circumvents the fragile human ego in ways that no other human endeavor ever has.

The human ego is a fragile thing. Its quick to judge, insecure, easily manipulated and it gets attached to things through identification. It holds on to ideas and beliefs at all costs, often against our own interests and despite real world observations to the contrary. No one faces a struggle more difficult than what their own ego creates and the one thing that threatens our survival as much as anything else is the fragility of the human ego. Our best intentions are hijacked by it, paving the road to hell on earth.

It isnt just genocidal government coercion that threatens our survival, but the fact that we fall for it. That, and our inability to see past our differences and find commonality in response to it. Egos become so intertwined with beliefs, creating a sense of self-inflated importance, that debates become pointless and serve little purpose other than reinforcing that same identification, superiority and division.

This has brought the world to a crossroads where we risk our own extermination through the perfect application of the old adage: divide and conquer. Only, were the ones dividing ourselves, leaving the human race vulnerable to be conquered by its own weakness.

No one can escape it. And we, those in the Bitcoin community, are no exception. Look no further than the botched attempt by Roger Ver to hijack Bitcoin, hiding behind the idea that Bitcoin can scale through an increase in block size alone. Or the ongoing saga involving that infamous character claiming to be Satoshi, a claim that was initially supported by Gavin Andresen, one of the original Bitcoin developers, despite all evidence to the contrary.

These people no longer pose a serious threat to Bitcoin, but at different times they may have. Despite the fact that Ver and Andresen may have started out with the best of intentions, the threats they posed to Bitcoin were once very real. And there will be others. Just look at the Great Plague Of Shitcoinery. And yet, Bitcoin survives and is flourishing, despite countless human egos wildly swinging for the fences.

Of course, no one looks at themselves this way. Were all inclined to believe that these characters are nothing like us. Theyve got problems. We dont. But lets be honest. Weve all sabotaged something at some point in our lives by virtue of being self-centered. And regardless of how small of an issue we think it may have been, it may have been a big deal for someone else without us ever known.

Even the most cruel dictator thinks hes acting in the interest of someone he loves while the protesting mob is kicking down the palace doors. And, particularly where human systems of governance are concerned, inflated egos always and inevitably get the better of our best intentions.

And thats the promise of Bitcoin. It remains intact where countless and all other well-intentioned human endeavors cannot. Because the design of Bitcoin circumvents the fragile human ego in ways that nothing else ever has.

Theres a lot of debate surrounding decentralization. But perhaps the aspect of decentralization that matters most is easily observable within ourselves. And I cant think of a more powerful example than the creator(s) of Bitcoin deciding to remain anonymous and surrendering their world-changing invention.

No one can escape the gravity of the human ego. And in a world characterized by self indulgence, division and discontent, through an almost miraculous act, Satoshi ensured that no ego could ever hijack Bitcoins mission to change the world.

Perhaps in years to come, people will recognize and appreciate that this act of selflessness constitutes the single most profound act of enlightenment throughout all of recorded human history eclipsing the likes of Gandhi, Jesus and Buddha. Satoshi changed the world, but no one knows who they are.

This is a guest post by Hermann Vivier. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

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The Age Of Bitcoin Enlightenment Bitcoin Magazine - Bitcoin Magazine

Leigh Cuen is a reporter in New York City. Her work has been published by Vice, Business Insider, Newsweek, Teen Vogue, Al Jazeera English, The Jerusalem Post, and many others. Follow her on Instagram at @leighcuen.More posts by this contributor

Regulators may still want to imply Bitcoin is merely a tool for criminals, but for many middle-class users, its proving to be a lifeline.

Even as politicians like EuropeanCentral Bank President Christine Lagarde criticize cryptocurrency for providing loopholes used for funny business, people like Saeed, an Iranian immigrant to France, see cryptocurrency as a necessity, because of the difficulty using mainstream financial systems.

Until 2020, Saeed, who asked to be identified only by his first name, was a software engineer in Iran whose salary barely reached 300 due to rampant inflation. In 2017, he started freelancing for international clients that paid him in Bitcoin. By September 2020, hed finally saved enough Bitcoin to go to graduate school in France. However, the pandemic made his immigration process much harder.

I passed all that strange bureaucracy and to get to a course in France last September, with only 1,000 in my pocket, Saeed said. HSBC, Banque Nationale de Paris, La Banque Postale, all rejected me, declining to open a bank account. I finally found a bank after a month.

In the meantime, Saeed used Bitcoin. He is exactly the type of person who benefits from loopholes in the traditional banking system.

Many people in Iran are working with European tech companies, Saeed said. Maybe I cant buy Bitcoin directly from the exchange because of my nationality.

Saeed thinks Lagarde represents bankers and government interests, not average citizens, who are happy to work with him. He said stricter regulations would make his access to the financial system more time-consuming and expensive, because hed have to pay friends and colleagues to transact on his behalf. However, Iranian migrants are hardly the sole user group relying on Bitcoin during the pandemic.

In the United Kingdom, a British expat named Paul found himself trapped in London when flights back to his Asian country of residence got canceled. Due to tight capital controls in his former country, and the challenges of repatriation during constant lockdowns, Paul was living in between regulatory systems.

I closed down the business [in Asia] just before the pandemic started. My father passed away and it was difficult to continue my company, Paul said. I was in hotels and Airbnbs for weeks and didnt have a residential addresswithout Bitcoin I would have been locked out of cash. I could only take money out of the ATM for a certain number of months because its limited to holidays.

Luckily, Paul had a little Bitcoin from earlier that year. Unlike Saeed, he didnt feel comfortable with the technical aspects, but he learned quickly. He used Bitcoin to buy gift cards for groceries, phone bills, hotels and Uber, plus paid a friend back in Asia to help wrap up his apartment and put things in storage.

I think it was generally a bad idea but, at least with Brexit, thank god we wont be subject to whatever Lagarde does, Paul said, adding that regulation can be beneficial if it avoids restrictions for people who dont have banking access.

Today, almost a year later, Paul still doesnt have access to most of his financial accounts. Instead, he downloaded Monzo, a banking app that uses passports for identity verification instead of residential addresses. He pays friends in London to deposit to his Monzo account.

It becomes really convoluted. I primarily use crypto because its easier, Paul said. One of my friends is a student from Nigeria and had a similar experience. He used Bitcoin to pay his school fees Ive been at my current residence for a couple of months, so I would be able to finally open a bank account. But now I dont really see the need, especially with the news of negative interest rates.

Meanwhile, the fiat-denominated price of Bitcoin surged over the past six months. This provided Saeed and Paul both with a little extra capital to spend time figuring out what they want to do next. For Saeed, does it make sense to do the graduate program online, with fewer networking benefits and hands-on experiences (the reason he came to France)? How does Paul move forward with his career now that his family business closed and his sector (music marketing) is in shambles?

Buying Bitcoin could be considered a form of gambling. Indeed, many middle-class hobbyist traders accrued life-changing amounts of wealth over the past year, usually by experimenting with risky software. For people like Paul and Saeed, who generally avoid experimental trades and lack alternative investment options, Bitcoins price appreciation is helping them get through a period of abysmal job markets and intermittent lockdowns. People dont need to live in a dictatorship or a country suffering from high inflation to benefit from Bitcoin. I would know; Im one of them.

Like many people during the pandemic, my living situation changed dramatically and I initially couldnt work full-time from home. I was lucky to sell a few poems in exchange for cryptocurrency, usually via direct messages and Bitcoin wallets or as digital collectibles through collaborations with tech-savvy artists. Then the bull market surged again, sending those meager earnings high enough to cover some of my bills. A valet worker and student in Kansas named Hess had a similar experience.

Quarantine helped kill his relationship of six years and he found himself needing to move out. He put his savings into Bitcoin during spring 2020, so that by December he was able to move out.

COVID hit and I was out of steady work for four months, Hess said. Honestly, if it wasnt for my decision to basically throw 70% of my net worth into Bitcoin, I dont think I would be in as good of a place mentally and financially.

To be clear, that is an extremely risky financial move and I would not advise it as a first resort. Yet, for many people experiencing unexpected change due to COVID-19, Bitcoin has become the lifeline it was for Hess.

Over the past year, Bitcoin donations may have gained popularity with several American communities, including some of the extremist groups involved with storming Capitol Hill. Incoming Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen echoed Lagardes concerns about Bitcoin being used for criminal activities.

However, so far, the analytics company Chainalysis estimates such donations add up to roughly $522,000. These numbers might also be compared to the cumulative totals managed by other subjects referenced in this article. For yet another lawful example, Lawrence Douglas, a former operations director at an event security company in California, lost his job as a result of the pandemic.

Cash App pretty much changed my financial life, Douglas said. Bitcoin prices during the calendar year of 2020 provided me with lots of wiggle room, while I currently search for a new job.

As an unemployed Black man, he was statistically less likely to have connections who could help him learn about stocks or precious metals, for example. He said Bitcoin, comparatively, has a low barrier to entry. In April 2020, he turned his stimulus check into a little Bitcoin nest egg. By November, he was utilizing a strategy called dollar-cost averaging, routinely buying small amounts of Bitcoin.

Douglas, like Paul, first bought cryptocurrency during the pandemic. On the other hand, when I interviewed more than a dozen Bitcoin users across Europe and North America for this article, most of them were crypto veterans who said Bitcoin gave them peace during the year-long crisis. Anesthesiologist Quentin Lobb, for example, said bottom line, our net worth grew tremendously in 2020, thanks to Bitcoin. It has provided a pleasant and exciting sense of financial security.

Yet another crypto veteran, Texas real estate agent broker Brandon Arnold, said the national political and economic situation was more mentally taxing than ever before. Against that backdrop, controlling a fraction of his own wealth gives him a sense of security. The price appreciation helps too, to be sure, though its not why Bitcoin is now so popular with middle-class users.

If I factor in the risk of not having access to my capital, the price volatility doesnt really matter, Paul said. As long as the price of Bitcoin doesnt go to zero, its still more useful for me than the other options available.

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How Bitcoin is helping middle-class users survive the pandemic - TechCrunch