While the global adoption of Bitcoin (BTC) continues to grow, the number of physical ATMs for fiat-crypto conversions is showing a decline. As many as 3,627 crypto ATMs were removed from the network in March, bringing the total number of ATMs to 33,727.
Number of crypto ATMs is falling
From data sourced from Coin ATM Radar turns out that since the launch of the first Bitcoin ATM on October 29, 2013, the number of cryptocurrency machines installed and removed monthly has been mostly positive, meaning that the total number of crypto ATMs worldwide has been steadily increasing for almost a decade. However, the data shows that this trend is now reversing.
Over a four-month period, including the first 3 months of 2023, the number of net crypto ATM installations has decreased. However, with the recent outages of 3,627 crypto ATMs last month, March 2023 stands out as the month with the largest monthly decline.
The chart below shows the number of Bitcoin machines installed over time, showing the sudden drop in the total number of crypto ATMs. The importance of this decrease seems enormous, especially when one considers that the highest number of ATMs installed in a month was only 2,048, which happened in January 2021.
Downward trend appears to have been broken
On a positive note, the downward trend of the past 3 months broke in April, with 37 crypto ATM installations registered today on April 1. At the moment, the market leaders in crypto ATM manufacturing are General Bytes, BitAccess, and Genesis Coin. However, the month is still long, so it is not certain whether this positive trend will continue.
Following the loss of client funds in a March “security incident” involving access to clients’ hot wallets, General Bytes promised to reimburse the losses. This incident was reported via Twitter by General Bytes confirmed. General Bytes concluded by saying the following in a statement:
We have taken immediate steps to prevent further unauthorized access to our systems and are working tirelessly to protect our customers.