THE Bitcoin trend is sweeping Brisbane, with the city’s first Bitcoin ATM now open at a South Brisbane cafe.

Bitcoin, an anonymous digital currency not tied to any nation’s currency, is ­exchanged for goods and services online.

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Bruce Carrall, from The Roastery Cafe, said the new Bitcoin ATM allowed people to exchange Bitcoins for hard cash and vice versa at the market price.

“I see this as the frontier days are over. It’s going more mainstream and we want to get behind it,” Mr Carrall said.

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Mr Carrall, 36, said customers could use the ATM by registering for a Bitcoin wallet via the machine within five minutes, use or sell Bitcoins at the market price, add currency to their virtual wallets by feeding in cash and sell Bitcoins to extract money.

The cafe also accepts Bitcoins for coffees which last week cost about 0.00966 of a Bitcoin, which according to currency converter coinmill.com was worth about AU$6.16 as of yesterday.

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The Yoga Den, at West End, has accepted Bitcoins for about six months for payment of classes.

Owner, Dan Alder said while he received only one payment in Bitcoins, he liked offering the option as a way to start a conversation.

“It’s not really my intention to ask people to use Bitcoins,” Mr Alder said.

“A lot of people ask me ‘what is Bitcoin’?

“It gives me a chance to say to them, if you haven’t heard of Bitcoins, go home and Google it and find out a little bit about it — it might be something you might want to participate in or it might open your eyes to what’s happening out there in terms of virtual and physical currency.”

Queensland University of Technology information ­security senior lecturer Douglas Stebila said Bitcoins had value because people ­believed they had value.

“(Prices) do fluctuate quite a bit so I don’t think a lot of people consider it a ­stable long-term investment,” Dr Stebila said.

Dr Stebila said new bitcoins could be created by a process called mining.

“People might be tempted to try and do that on your own computer — you can and it’s legal — but the amount of electricity you’re going to spend to get a Bitcoin is probably not worth it,” he said.