Australia has surpassed El Salvador to become the fourth-largest hub for crypto ATMs

As Australia stepped up its game over the following months, El Salvador’s position as the fourth-largest crypto ATM hub was short-lived. El Salvador, the first nation to legalize Bitcoin, has fallen one more place in the total number of crypto ATM installations, falling to 216 as Australia enters the year 2023.

President Nayib Bukele made the decision to set up over 200 cryptocurrency ATMs all over El Salvador as part of the effort to make Bitcoin a legal tender. In September 2021, this move made El Salvador the third-largest crypto ATM hub after the United States and Canada. However, in 2022, Spain and Australia surpassed El Salvador’s ATM count.

When President Nayib Bukele ordered the installation of more than 200 crypto ATMs across the country in September 2021, El Salvador made a significant step toward recognizing Bitcoin as a form of currency that could be used in transactions. After the United States and Canada, this made El Salvador the third-largest hub for crypto ATMs at the time.

However, the Central American nation’s dominance in this area was short-lived as Spain and Australia eventually overtook El Salvador in terms of the total number of ATMs installed. As of 2023, Australia has 219 ATMs, putting El Salvador one more place below it in the rankings.

In spite of this, El Salvador stays huge as it was the main country to sanction Bitcoin.

After installing 215 crypto ATMs, Spain became the third-largest crypto ATM hub, according to Cointelegraph in October 2022. However, Spain continued its installation campaign and currently houses 226 crypto ATMs. As Australia stepped up its game over the following months, El Salvador’s position as the fourth-largest crypto ATM hub was short-lived.

According to information gathered from CoinATMRadar, 99 crypto ATMs were set up in Australia during the third quarter of 2022. Australia had 219 active crypto ATMs as of January 1, 2023, seven more than El Salvador at the time this article was written.

At this rate, Australia is well-positioned to take over Asia’s crypto ATM numbers, which currently stand at 312 ATMs. Australia accounts for 0.6% of global installations of crypto ATMs. There are 38,602 cryptocurrency ATMs worldwide, 6,071 of which were installed in 2022 alone.

The government was forced to restrict ATM cash withdrawals to $225 (100,000 nairas) per week as a result of Nigeria’s efforts to mandate the use of an internal central bank digital currency (CBDC), eNaira.

“Customers should be encouraged to use alternative channels (internet banking, mobile banking apps, USSD, cards/POS, eNaira, etc.) to conduct their banking transactions,” noted Haruna Mustafa, the director of banking supervision, while announcing the drive.

Spain became the third-largest hub for crypto ATMs in the world when it installed 215 of them in October 2022. Since then, 226 cryptocurrency ATMs have been added to Spain’s network.

In terms of the number of crypto ATMs, El Salvador was once among the top four nations; however, Australia quickly overtook it. As per information from CoinATMRadar, Australia introduced 99 crypto ATMs in the last quarter of 2022, bringing its total number of active ATMs to 219 as of January 1, 2023. This indicates that El Salvador currently has 212 ATMs, but Australia now has more crypto ATMs.

Australia has made significant progress in the field of crypto ATMs, which now account for 0.6% of the global total. There were 219 active crypto ATMs in Australia as of January 1, 2023, and the nation is well-positioned to surpass the 312 ATMs in Asia at this time.

When you consider that there are 38,602 crypto ATMs worldwide and that 6,071 ATMs were installed in 2022 alone, these figures are especially impressive.