Matthew Klinger, 51, of Jefferson City, Missouri, received five years of supervised probation after pleading guilty to shooting a bitcoin ATM with a pistol.
It's unclear if there was any malfunction with the machine, however, he said he did it "so that it doesn't take money from other people". Recent reports say Klinger arrived at Vapor Maven on Missouri Avenue last August and asked to speak with the general manager of the store (where the ATM is placed). After hanging up the phone, he pulled out his pistol, fired five rounds into the machine, and left the scene.
Klinger told investigators that he came home after the violence, confessed everything to his wife and called police. He also left the weapon on the porch of his home.
When asked about the motive behind the shooting, he said he vandalized the Bitcoin ATM "so that it couldn't withdraw money from other people." He pleaded guilty last week to first-degree property damage in Cole County and received five years of supervised probation. The offenders are assigned to a law enforcement officer who oversees their actions and ensures they comply with court orders. This is another form of prison, but for misbehavior there may be a prison sentence. The number of Bitcoin automated teller machines (ATMs) has increased significantly over the past few years (mainly driven by the bull market and high interest in cryptocurrencies in 2021). The first such machine was launched in October 2013 and there are now more than 35,000 of them.
The United States, where the aforementioned shooting took place, has 32,650 Bitcoin ATMs and is the undisputed leader in this statistic. Canada was second with 2,669 and Australia was third with 276. Spain, Poland and El Salvador round out the top five.
More than 20,000 ATMs will be established in 2021 (when Bitcoin hits an all-time high of nearly $70,000). The craze has even spread to struggling economies such as Cambodia, Namibia, Venezuela and Lebanon, where authorities have allowed the assembly of such machines.
However, the long crypto winter of 2022 has moderated the temperature. As CryptoPotato reported, the first 11 months of last year saw the installation of just 6,100 new ATMs.
