A sign advertises a Bitcoin ATM at a gas station on July 16, 2025 near Pasadena, California.
According to the FBI, $240 million was lost to cryptocurrency ATM scams in the first six months of 2025 — about double the pace of similar scams in 2024. The growing pace of crypto ATM fraud has some policymakers pursuing bans and others asking why the nation is blanketed in these machines in the first place.
Spokane Police Detective Tim Schwering started noticing the rise in crypto crime in 2023. “Cases started flowing my way where people were getting ripped off by cryptocurrency machines,” Schwering said. The money would find its way to China, Russia, Nigeria, and other far-off outposts. “You couldn’t get to anyone or get the money back,” Schwering said. People’s life savings in Spokane were wiped away.
Schwering said one man lost $900,000, all deposited into the shadowy crypto ATM at the corner. At least two people lost their life savings and, despondent, then took their own lives. It was usually elderly or lonely people roped in by an overseas crypto criminal masquerading as a romantic interest, or preying on a decline in cognitive function that leads people to become more easily scared, Schwering said. In some cases, scammers posed as government agents threatening to unleash the full power of the IRS. But that would all go away if victims would just go to a crypto machine and deposit $40,000.
So the detective began visiting retirement homes and other community venues to educate people about the dangers posed by scammers wielding crypto ATMs. “My job is to try to protect people, and it’s very frustrating, Schwering said, specifically because the criminals are usually overseas and safely out of reach of arrest. “So, we could at least change policy,” he said.
That’s when Spokane Councilman Paul Dillon took up the cause, first championing a statewide ban that fizzled in the legislature. “We wanted to see what levers we could pull locally,” Dillon said. As Schwering continued to investigate crypto scams, Dillon proposed an ordinance banning crypto ATMs in the city. “The compelling stories moved us into action. There are ideological differences on our city council, but the ban passed unanimously and I am proud,” Dillon said.
The resolution was implemented in June, and businesses have been using a grace period to remove the machines.
The Spokane ban was one of the first in the nation, following a similar ordinance passed in Stillwater, Minnesota, after a resident was scammed there. “We’ve received no complaints about the removal,” Dillon said. He is hopeful that the legislature will pass a statewide ban in the next session (which begins Monday) which would stop the crypto ATMs from simply being relocated to neighboring municipalities.
Schwering said a federal ban — something Dillion doesn’t think is realistic given the Trump administration’s crypto regulatory stance — is the ultimate answer, noting the city is only 20 minutes from the Idaho border. Meanwhile, several states spanning the political spectrum, including Arizona, Arkansas, and Vermont are tightening laws or considering additional restrictions on the ATMs. Other cities, like St. Paul, Minnesota, are considering outright bans similar to Spokane’s.
The problem has gone nationwide, with a recent CNN report on crypto scammers using Circle K convenience stories across the country as a hub for this activity.
Some experts — especially ones working in the crypto industry — say that getting rid of the ATMs wouldn’t eliminate fraud and there could be unintended consequences to wholesale removal.
“Eliminating them may reduce certain fraud vectors, but it also removes one of the last public-access tools for financial privacy and cash-to-crypto conversion,” said Alex Davis, founder and CEO of Mavryk, a blockchain company focused on real-world asset tokenization. “The question isn’t whether crypto ATMs should exist; it’s whether society is comfortable with a future where every dollar must pass through a fully surveilled, fully permissioned gatekeeper.”
Davis said that crypto ATMs persist not because they are the safest option, but because they solve a problem that the regulated financial system still doesn’t: accessible, private, and frictionless movement of money. “Fraud is a real concern, but focusing only on that misses the broader societal dynamic. A significant portion of the population still operates in a cash-heavy or underbanked economy, and for them, a crypto ATM is often the only bridge into digital assets,” Davis said.
He says the high fees — often 10% or more — aren’t a feature of the technology, but a premium charged for privacy and immediacy. “There is a segment of society that does not want every transaction surveilled or intermediated,” Davis said, adding that traditional finance has increasingly shifted toward restrictive guardrails, escalating compliance friction, and a shrinking tolerance for anonymous economic activity. “Crypto ATMs fill the gap that banks no longer service,” Davis said.
