Bitcoin ATMs are increasing in popularity as the number of new installations has reportedly reached its lowest level in two years

The number of Bitcoin ATM (BTC-USD) installations around the world has fallen to its lowest level since 2021, even as prices for most cryptocurrencies have risen this year, alternative data provider AltIndex said in a recent report.

Also Bitcoin (BTC-USD) ATMs (Automated Teller Machines). BTMs are kiosks where customers can buy and sometimes sell Bitcoins with cash or a debit card. Designed to simplify the conversion of cash to Bitcoin, funds are transferred to a consumer’s digital wallet and verified and recorded on the blockchain, a secured public ledger.

But since December, when the number of global BTMs reached an all-time high, the popularity of BTMs has lost ground, Wednesday’s report said. The number installed since then fell 17% to 32.5k in October. In January 2020, before the pandemic triggered a historic surge in crypto prices, the number of BTMs stood at just 6,36,000.

AltIndex attributed the decline to “the market volatility observed over the past ten months and the controversies surrounding its potential criminal use.”

To this end, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has outlined a range of risks of BTMs, from “predatory inclusion” to money laundering, which could ultimately impact consumers and future regulations.

“The relative anonymity of transactions as well as the speed, convenience and irreversibility of converting cash into crypto make BTMs ideal for money launderers,” the Kansas City Fed wrote in an August article.

The United States, where there are the most BTMs, saw the largest decline in BTM installations. Last week there were 26.7k machines in the world’s largest economy, compared to 34.2k in December. Despite this, there are eighteen times more BTMs in the USA than in Europe, where there were around 1.5 thousand. Asia has the fewest machines installed, with less than 350.

Interestingly, the peak in the number of BTM installs late last year coincided with a general downturn in the crypto market, which led to a spate of high-profile outages across the industry. Now it looks like the relationship between BTM and cryptocurrency has begun to unravel as BTM installations have declined this year despite higher cryptocurrency prices. Despite rising 77.2% year-to-date, Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is still almost 60% below its record highs.

Bitcoin Depot (BTM), which allows consumers to buy Bitcoin (BTC-USD) for cash at over 3.5K locations, has seen its shares fall 73% year-to-date. Still, B. Riley analyst Hal Goetsch gave the stock a “Buy” rating, citing it as “a way to express an investment view for broader consumer adoption of Bitcoin without being highly correlated with price fluctuations in the cryptocurrency market.”

Other BTM operators include: Bullet Blockchain (OTCPK:BULT), Santo Blockchain (OTCPK:SANP), CoinCloud, CoinFlip, Bitcoin of America, Bitstop, Coinsource and Cash2Bitcoin.

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