MANCHESTER - It's been nearly two years since two local inventors debuted an ATM designed to dispense bitcoins, a form of virtual currency that exists only on the Internet.

Visitors to the New Hampshire Liberty Forum in Nashua in February 2013 got a peek at the bitcoin ATM, invented in Manchester by brothers Zach and Josh Harvey.

Lamassu, the company they created to produce and market the machines, is now about to launch the first two-way bitcoin ATM, which will convert bitcoin into currency.

Up to this date, machines have only taken currency and issued bitcoin.

"In two weeks, we'll debut our cash-out machine," said Zach Harvey. "It will be interesting to see how it plays out in the field. I still think the cash-to-bitcoin will be more popular. But sometime, you like the idea of getting some cash for your bitcoin."

Harvey, who still runs the business with his brother out of their Manchester apartment, used the example of a traveler at an airport anxious to get currency from the country in which he has just landed.

You can't physically hold a bitcoin in your hand. The dollar value of the bitcoin, whatever it may be at that moment, is credited to your bitcoin wallet online, which can be used to pay for transactions with any merchant that honors bitcoin.

The new ATMs will enable bitcoin owners to convert some of the values in their bitcoin wallet to hard cash in the currency of whatever country they happen to be in at the time.

The Lamassu machines have found their way into retail, hospitality and entertainment venues around the world.

"We now have machines in 40 countries," said Harvey. "And they use the language of the country they are in. We have machines in German, French, Spanish, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic and Chinese."

Continue reading here:

Bitcoin evolves as it continues to grow in world use