One of Canada’s first companies to launch Bitcoin ATMs across the country is expanding its fleet of Lamassu-brand ATMs to Vancouver, British Columbia’s Simon Fraser campus bookstores in Vancouver, Surrey and Burnaby. BitSent now has Bitcoin ATMs in 11 locations across the country and is looking to expand internationally in 2015.

While other Bitcoin companies are experimenting with newer technology such as QuadrigaCX’s SumoPro Bitcoin ATMs, BitSent has chosen to stick with the Lamassu model despite some hiccups in the operation and maintenance of the earlier models.

Bitsent’s Simon Fraser Bookstore locations will be the first university bookstore in Canada to accept bitcoin as payment for books, T-shirts, mugs and other products carried in their stores (MIT’s Coop bookstore also accepts bitcoin). Calling it “a step forward for exploration and learning”, Mike Yeung, founder of the Simon Fraser University (SFU) bitcoin club was happy to tell Bitcoin Magazine “I’m proud that SFU has the first university-administered bookstore in North America to take bitcoin. This will give students here a practical example of how bitcoin works.”

Silicon Valley North – Waterloo Innovation Triangle

BitSent is one of the new pioneering high-tech companies thriving in Ontario, Canada’s innovation triangle just west and north of Toronto.Also known as “Canada’s Technology Triangle” the area is a hotbed of new and future tech startups and includes the towns of Waterloo, Kitchener and Cambridge.The best-known member of this network is BlackBerry, but the area also includes development offices of established companies such as Microsoft, Google and Oracle.

The region is home to close to 1,000 companies that generate about $30 billion in annual revenues. In addition to BlackBerry, the Waterloo area has launched hundreds of successful tech startups, including OpenText, Christie Digital, COMDEV International and Clearpath Robotics.

Photo Soggybread / CC BY-SA 3.0