Despite the prolonged crypto winter last year and the record-low dynamics of new Bitcoin ATM installations around the world, Australia has made its place in the top three nations in the global crypto ATM race.
A cryptocurrency ATM resembles a traditional ATM and is often used for trading bitcoin or withdrawing money. Crypto ATMs are used as an indicator to observe the progress of the adoption of crypto as an everyday thing.
In the first days of 2023, the country surpassed El Salvador to claim the fourth position. Following that, the nation has added 16 more machines to its name.
According to data from CoinATMRadar, Australia now has a total of 234 ATM devices. Within three weeks, it outperformed Spain, which possesses 222 crypto ATMs. Now the only two nations above Australia are the United States and Canada.
The figures from the past three weeks, in which Australia moved to third position from fourth position, reveal that while it added 16 devices to its geography, Spain lost four devices which have been pushed to the fourth spot. Notably, El Salvador, the Central American nation, did not record a single new ATM in the tenure, sliding to the fifth position.
Apparently, Australia deployed 99 crypto ATMs, which makes a significant share of the total count within the last three months of 2022 and has maintained its pace ever since.
However, the number of devices in Australia, Spain, or El Salvador is nowhere close to the number of crypto ATMs in the United States.
The US is home to over 33,387 devices, almost 86.9% of all the machines in the world. Combined with Canada, which has 2,556 machines, they account for a whopping 94.4% of all the crypto ATMs as of writing.
While some nations progressively moved towards crypto ATMs last year, the prolonged bear market, geopolitical tensions, and inflation resulted in a dramatic slowdown of global crypto ATM installations.
Reportedly, only 94 Bitcoin ATMs were added to the world map between July to the end of 2022. The number is very menial compared to 4,169 ATM installations during the year’s first half.
Also this month, the Australian city of Coolangatta got its very first Bitcoin ATM with integrated Lightning Network capabilities. Sources reveal that it works similarly to traditional crypto ATMs but has the added advantage of saving time due to the layer-2 lightning solutions and allows for purchasing minimal amounts of BTC.