Australia overthrows El Salvador, becomes 4th Biggest Crypto ATM Hub
- Australia recently overtook El Salvador to become the fourth largest crypto ATM hub in the world.
- The Southern Hemisphere-based country installed a whopping 99 crypto ATMs during the last quarter of 2022.
- In October, Spain installed 215 crypto ATMs but now has 226 ATMs and is therefore, ranked third.
- At this rate, Asia’s 312 crypto ATMs might soon be overtaken by Australia’s 0.6% of all crypto ATMs installations worldwide.
Australia, which has seen a massive cryptocurrency adoption these past few years, recently overtook El Salvador to become the fourth largest crypto ATM hub in the world. While the latter is the first country to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender, the former has pushed it down in total crypto ATM installations by recording 216 ATMs.
In September 2021, El Salvador president and a big BTC supporter Nayib Bukele made the decision to install more than 200 cryptocurrency ATMs across the country as part of his effort to make Bitcoin a legal tender. El Salvador was at the time, the third-largest center for cryptocurrency ATMs after the United States and Canada. However, in 2022, Spain and Australia overtook the country in terms of ATM count.
Notably, in October, Spain installed 215 crypto ATMs, making it the third-largest hub for crypto ATMs. However, Spain kept up its installation spree and, as of this writing, has 226 crypto ATMs. El Salvador’s reign as the fourth-largest center for crypto ATMs was temporary because Australia improved during the last three months of 2022.
According to the data from CoinATMRadar, Australia installed a whopping 99 cryptocurrency ATMs during the last quarter of 2022. As of January 1, 2023, the country records 219 active crypto ATMs, surpassing El Salvador by 7 ATMs.
At this rate, Asia’s 312 crypto ATMs might soon be overtaken by Australia’s 0.6% of all crypto ATMs installations worldwide. There are currently 38,602 crypto ATMs operating worldwide, and interestingly, despite the prolonged crypto bear market, 6,071 of them were set up in 2022.
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.
On the other hand, the government of Nigeria has decided to set a weekly limit of $225 (100,000 naira) on ATM withdrawals as part of its effort to encourage the adoption of the eNaira, its own CBDC. while announcing the drive, the director of banking supervision Haruna Mustafa stated:
“Customers should be encouraged to use alternative channels (Internet banking, mobile banking apps, USSD, cards/POS, eNaira, etc.) to conduct their banking transactions.”
A crypto journalist with over 3 years of experience in DeFi, NFT, metaverse, etc. Parth has worked with major media outlets in the crypto and finance world and has gained experience and expertise in crypto culture after surviving bear and bull markets over the years.
