Bitcoin [BTC] price might have taken an unexpected turn, the ATMs, however, are still growing. Over the past several years, cryptocurrency ATMs have seen tremendous growth. These Automated Teller Machines have multiplied quickly across the world.
According to the latest charts by Coin ATM Radar, these machines have grown from a mere 6,373 at the beginning of the year to 23,248 at the end of the second quarter. In short, the figures for ATMs have surged by 264.7% in the first two quarters of the year. Particularly in March-May, Bitcoin ATMs opened at a much rapid pace fueled by a frenzy in crypto trading that sent BTC prices above $60,000 for the first time in its decade-long history.
Growth in Bitcoin ATMs
A quick history: It all started on the 29th of October 2013, when the Waves coffee shop in Vancouver Canada, opened a Robocoin machine which went to be known as the world’s first publicly available Bitcoin ATM. In the same year, Europe got its first-ever Bitcoin ATM that was installed in Slovakia. The United States followed suit with the country’s that went online a year later in a cigar bar in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was removed a few weeks later. While Robocoin shut its operations down in 2015, it paved the way for these new machines in other parts of the world.
Leading the chart is the United States which hosts over 85% of the ATMs in the world. Currently, the country has around 20,000 ATMs. Canada comes in second with roughly 1,532, followed by the UK with 157 machines.
Some of the top operators of these crypto ATMs that dominate the space are Bitcoin Depot with 3,391 and a market share of 14.6%, CoinCloud with 2,537, and a market share of 10.9%, and Coin Flip with 2,415 and a market share of 10.4%, among others.
Recently, Athena Bitcoin, which happens to be the operator of cryptocurrency-based automated teller machines, has revealed its intention to establish 1,500 new cash-to-crypto machines in El Salvador right after the country’s legislature passed a bill-making Bitcoin a legal tender alongside the US dollar.