Australia has become the fourth largest ATM hub, surpassing El Salvador with a total of 216 crypto ATM installations through 2023.
Brand Spur Nigeria reports that El Salvador, the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, had fallen 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 more than 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, but was soon surpassed by Spain and Australia in 2022. In October 2022, Spain was reported to be the Third largest crypto ATM. hub after installing 215 ATMs.
However, Australia implemented 99 cryptocurrency ATMs in the last three months of 2022, according to data from Coin ATM Radar, an internet analytics company that tracks the total number of cryptocurrency ATMs around 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, with 222 of its own according to Cryptopolitan reports. Canada and Spain remain in second and third place respectively. Australia keeps up with facilities despite tougher incoming regulations
The country has made an active effort to improve its regulation of crypto services and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirms this. The Australian government will also publish a consultation document in early 2023 to determine which digital assets will be subject to legal regulation. This proposed regulation will involve a variety of activities, from the registration and licensing of crypto service providers to the implementation of terrorist financing and AML measures.
As part of its focus on cryptocurrency, the Australian Federal Police recently established a new crypto unit to focus on monitoring cryptocurrency-related transactions and was created with the aim of attacking money laundering as more criminals seek to circumvent the Finance system.
