Breaking Year-Long Global Bitcoin Downtrend and crypto ATMs, which recorded sharp growth in May, with nearly 1,400 net installations.
The total number of crypto ATMs continued to decline in the first four months of 2023. During this period, major economies such as the United States contributed to the decline in volume, but Australia, Poland and Spain increased the installation of crypto ATMs. The graph above shows a net global decline of 5,850 cryptocurrency ATMs in the first four months of 2023. However, in May, 1,397 machines were added back to the global crypto ATM network, confirming data from Coin ATM Radar.
While a Bitcoin ATM does not contribute to the growth of the Bitcoin network, it acts as a physical gateway for people to exchange fiat currency for cryptocurrency. With 233 ATMs installed in 2023 alone, Australia moved up the ranks to become the thirteen d largest crypto ATM center in the world. Despite a poor year of decline, the US retains its lead accounting for 84.7% of global cryptocurrency ATMs, followed by Canada at 7.6%. At the time of writing, there are still 35,069 ATMs still in operation around the world . Recently, a hacker managed to gain access to sensitive information including passwords, private keys, and funds at Bitcoin ATM manufacturer General Bytes.
"We have taken immediate steps to prevent further unauthorized access to our systems and are working tirelessly to protect our customers," General Bytes said in its statement.
As previously reported by Cointelegraph, hackers managed to drain at least 56 BTC and 21.82 Ether. To avoid similar situations in the future, the company recommends that its operators and customers migrate to self-hosted server installations that can be secured via a virtual priv ate network .
