Australia emerges as a rising crypto ATM hub

The United States became the home of the first thousand crypto ATMs in November 2017. Canada hit the same mark in January 2021. Australia, the third substantial hub for Bitcoin, followed soon after that. Cryptocurrency ATMs also entered the landscape, with 1.000 crypto-fiat ATMs connected to a blockchain.

The crypto ATM landscape

Ethereum gained a significant lead in this regard, not least because it is the first digital asset to address the issue of smart contracts, permissions, and data protection. Australia with 2.7% of the global Bitcoin ATM network. The country’s first 1,000 crypto-ATMs were built in November 2017, while Canada had its 1,000th in January 2021. Currently, the US has the biggest number of Bitcoin ATMs, where the share of crypto-ATMs is 82.8%. At the same time, the adoption rate from the end of 2022 has greatly exploded due to private sector investors.

April 2023 marked the success of Australian Bitcoin ATMs, whose count was more than Asia’s, comprising strong economies like China, Japan, Singapore, and India. In light of the current pace of the installation process, Australia can outperform Europe, which has a share of 4.3% (1,617 machines) of all the presently working Bitcoin ATMs.

Another country with notable growth in crypto ATMs is Spain, which has over 200 such machines. So, along with others (like El Salvador, Poland, Germany, Hong Kong, etc.), Spain also attracted increased attention from crypto ATM companies in May 2022. 

Source: Coin ATM Radar

Security breach highlights risks

“This is the most recent release of our hacking team, and it contains the Bitcoin Chivo wallet ATM source code, a government wallet of El Salvador. Remember that we do not sell or keep anything for ourselves—all is for you for free.” The statement was written in a public forum by CiberInteligenciaSV, a hacker group.