By Sharan Kaur Phillora
Shortly after being the fourth-largest crypto ATM hub in the world, El Salvador was overtaken by Australia. To the dismay of Bitcoin (BTC) pioneers in El Salvador, Australia has installed 216 cryptocurrency ATMs as we enter the year 2023, pushing the Central American nation further down the list.
Here’s what we know:
President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador chose to deploy over 200 cryptocurrency ATMs nationwide as part of the country’s push to recognize Bitcoin as legal cash. When this happened in September of 2021, El Salvador surpassed the United States and Canada as the third-largest crypto ATM hub in the world. However, by 2022, Spain and Australia had surpassed El Salvador.
It was announced in October 2022 that Spain’s 215 cryptocurrency ATMs had made it the third-largest center for such devices globally. On the other hand, the installation push continued in Spain and was host to 226 crypto ATMs. Shortly after being the fourth-largest crypto ATM hub, El Salvador was overtaken by Australia.
According to CoinATMRadar, Australia put in place 99 cryptocurrency ATMs in the last three months of 2022. Australia has 219 working crypto ATMs as of January 1, 2023, which is 7 more than El Salvador’s ATMs as of this writing.
Australia’s 0.6% share in the worldwide crypto ATM market puts it in a good position to surpass Asia’s 312 ATMs any time soon. There are a total of 38,602 cryptocurrency ATMs in operation around the globe, with 6,071 of those machines coming online in 2022 alone.
Australia has recently seen massive crypto adoption, prompting the regulatory bodies to accelerate their regulatory efforts for the crypto sector. In September, the Reserve Bank of Australia partnered with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre to find out the use cases of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the nation. The country is expecting to run its CBDC pilot program till mid-2023.
In addition to installing crypto ATMs, the Australian government has said it will make plans to create a regulatory framework that will oversee the activities of digital assets service providers in 2023.
About the author
Sharan Kaur Phillora’s thirst for knowledge has led her to study many different subjects, including NFTs and Blockchain technology – two emerging technologies that will change how we interact with each other in the future. When she isn’t exploring a new idea or concept, she enjoys reading literary masterpieces.
