Australia has overtaken El Salvador to become the fourth-largest ATM hub. Australia recorded a total of 216 crypto ATM installations going into 2023.
El Salvador, the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender, had dropped from its position as the fourth-largest crypto ATM hub after Australia stepped up its installation game. As part of El Salvador’s campaign to make Bitcoin legal tender, the country’s president decided to install over 200 crypto ATMs across the country. At the time of this move, El Salvador became the third-largest ATM hub, after the United States and Canada, put was soon overtaken by Spain and Australia in 2022. In October 2022, Spain was reported as being the third-largest crypto ATM hub after it installed 215 ATMs.
Australia however deployed 99 crypto ATMs in the last three months of 2022, according to data by Coin ATM Radar – an internet analytics company that keeps track of the total number of cryptocurrency ATMs all over the world. While the United States continues to lead the charge when it comes to ATMs, Poland has also taken over El Salvador in terms of the number of crypto ATMs, having 222 of their own according to reports by Cryptopolitan. Canada and Spain remain in second and third place respectively.
Australia Keeps Up with Installations Despite Stricter Incoming Regulations
The country has taken an active effort to improve its regulation of crypto services with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirming this. The government down under is also set to publish a consultation paper in early 2023 to determine which digital assets will be subject to legal regulation. This proposed regulation will involve a range of activities, from the registration and licensing of crypto service providers to the implementation of AML and counter-terrorism financing measures.
As part of its focus on cryptocurrencies, the Australian Federal Police recently established a new crypto unit to focus on monitoring cryptocurrency-related transactions and has been set up with the goal of targeting money laundering as more criminals seek to bypass the financial system.
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