Australia Ranks 3rd For Crypto ATMs, Overtaking U.S. and Canada

Australia has more crypto ATMs despite the bear market and record-low dynamics of new Bitcoin ATM installations worldwide. Australia has 234 cryptocurrency ATMs, ranking it third in the world behind only the United States and Canada, according to Coinatmradar. Within three weeks, it surpassed Spain, which has 222 cryptocurrency ATMs.

It’s all about change: in the last three months of 2022, Australia installed 99 cryptocurrency ATMs or over half of its total. Since early the year, 16 ATMs have been added in Australia, while in Spain, four have been removed, and in El Salvador, which is now ranked fifth globally, not a single ATM has been added.

Compared to the United States’ staggeringly high number of cryptocurrency ATMs, even the combined totals for Spain and El Salvador fall well short. There are now 33,387 cryptocurrency ATMs in the United States, accounting for 86.1% of all such devices worldwide. 94.4% of all crypto ATMs are in the United States and Canada.

Crypto ATM distribution by continents and countries. Source: CoinATMRadar

The installation of cryptocurrency ATMs slowed dramatically in 2022 due to the weak market, geopolitical concerns, and worldwide inflation that year. In contrast to the 4,169 Bitcoin ATMs added to the global network in the first half of 2022, only 94 Bitcoin ATMs were added between July and the end of 2022.

In January, the first Bitcoin ATM with Lightning Network functionality was installed in Coolangatta, Australia. It’s functionally equivalent to standard crypto ATMs, but the layer 2 Lightning technology drastically reduces transaction times and enables the small purchase of Bitcoin.