Less than a hundred bitcoin ATMs have become part of the international network in the past six months. According to a research report by BTC ATM tracker CoinATMRadar, only 94 machines were installed in different parts of the world between July 2022 and January 2023. It is noteworthy that this is the same period that the global crypto market crashed from its trillion-dollar cap to hover at the $800 billion (roughly Rs. 65,90,200 crore) mark.
BTC ATMs Allow users to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies via debit and credit cards. Some machines also allow sales Bitcoins in exchange for fiat currencies.
Of the 94 installed machines, the US, Australia, Canada and Spain have expressed interest in bitcoin machines. ElSalvadorthe Central American nation that legitimized Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021 has significantly lost its top spot in the BTC ATM rankings.
The first ever cryptocurrencyeven the most expensive, BTC values fell sharply from their recent all-time high of $68,000 (INR equivalent) reached its current value of $17,200 (approximately Rs. 14 lakh) per token in November 2021.
The collapse of promising crypto projects like Terra and FTX crypto exchange left investors dry between September and December last year, which may have led to a lack of demand for these kiosks.
In a report published in October, CoinATMRadar said the number of crypto ATMs around the world had dropped to 37,980 from 38,776 machines at the time. In fact, the report had also claimed that nearly 800 ATMs were alarmingly pulled from the global crypto network in September 2022.
On the contrary, the machine-tracking company recorded that 4,169 BTC ATMs were set up worldwide between January and June 2022.
BitAccess, the Canadian BTC ATM provider, saw a deeper decline in its business compared to the other machine provider, Cointelegraph reported citing CoinATMRadar.
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