{"id":34827,"date":"2026-05-06T21:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T21:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/34827\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T21:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T21:40:08","slug":"ottawa-urged-to-hit-pause-on-plan-to-ban-crypto-atms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/34827\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa urged to hit pause on plan to ban crypto ATMs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A regular ATM and a Bitcoin ATM at a convenience store in downtown Toronto, May, 2024.Abhijit Alka Anil\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

The federal government\u2019s pledge to shut down nearly 4,000 crypto ATMs is getting praise from groups working to combat fraud but generating strong pushback from the cryptocurrency<\/a> industry. <\/p>\n

Canada would become the latest country, behind New Zealand, Singapore and Britain, to place a ban on cryptocurrency ATMs in an effort to tackle the criminal use of money service businesses for scams and illicit fund transfers. <\/p>\n

Ottawa\u2019s spring fiscal update in late April signalled its intention to bring in legislation to ban crypto ATMs. Canada has seen rising cases of cryptocurrency fraud, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. <\/p>\n

The update said these machines are a primary method used by scammers to defraud victims, as criminals often use them to launder money, instantly transferring funds between wallets.<\/p>\n

New financial crime agency aims to improve Canada\u2019s enforcement regime<\/a><\/p>\n

The legislation, when passed, would make it a criminal offence to operate a crypto ATM.<\/p>\n

Crypto ATMs, also known as Bitcoin ATMs, are physical kiosks found in convenience stores or gas stations. They allow for the purchase of cryptocurrency with cash. These machines operate independently \u2013 unlike traditional banking machines that flow money to and from a bank account.<\/p>\n

Fraudsters often target older adults by posing as bank employees, police officers or government officials and falsely claiming the target\u2019s money is at risk, directing them to withdraw cash and deposit it into a crypto ATM to protect their funds.<\/p>\n

While crypto transactions can be traced, money can be sent across borders, making tracking and recovering funds more challenging. <\/p>\n

Fraudsters have also found ways to get their victims to deposit cash into anonymous or pseudonymous crypto wallets, said Jessica Davis, president of the consultancy Insight Threat Intelligence. She is also president of the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes it really difficult for the police to recover those proceeds of crime as well. Because once they\u2019re in the crypto ecosystem, maybe they can be traced, but the international nature of it makes asset recovery pretty close to impossible,\u201d she said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Australia has also taken steps toward regulating these machines. It sets a limit of 5,000 Australian dollars on transactions, while Britain, Singapore and New Zealand effectively banned crypto ATMs. <\/p>\n

Ms. Davis, who spent almost two decades working within government agencies, including the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, said a full ban on the ATMs would eliminate a lot of the ways illicit actors get around traditional safeguards.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have a $5,000 daily limit, if you are somebody who\u2019s \u2013 for instance \u2013 dealing drugs, all you need to do is find three or four friends, and you can deposit $20,000 into cryptocurrency,” she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is there\u2019s a lot of ways around it. So, if you don\u2019t have the ATMs at all, it really eliminates those kinds of possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calgary\u2019s Tetra launches first Canadian dollar-backed stablecoin issued by financial institution<\/a><\/p>\n

But for Ben Weiss, the proposed ban came as a shock. Mr. Weiss is co-founder and chief executive officer of CoinFlip, a crypto kiosk operator with more than 5,000 machines across 10 countries. CoinFlip proactively reached out to Ottawa a couple of months ago, he said, but did not hear back about any specific issues or shortcomings with their machines.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to stop fraud,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

CoinFlip reports suspicious transactions to FinTRAC, he added, and is under the same federal anti-money laundering rules that banks operate under.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government should at least consult with the industry, and if they\u2019re seeing issues, give the industry a chance to be part of the solution,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not been given any opportunity as a stakeholder to provide our expertise at stopping fraud and stopping money laundering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ottawa\u2019s announcement in the fiscal update drew similar concern from other cryptocurrency companies.<\/p>\n

Localcoin, Canada\u2019s largest crypto ATM operator, expressed concern in a press release last week. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was developed without prior notice to stakeholders, and no one in the industry was aware it was under consideration,\u201d said chief executive Tristan Fong. <\/p>\n

He added that fraud is a broader challenge within the financial system, and that eliminating one access point \u2013 like these ATMs \u2013 would not stop criminal activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are ready to work collaboratively with policymakers to strengthen regulation, enhance fraud prevention measures, and improve public education across crypto ATM networks,\u201d Mr. Fong added, echoing sentiments from Mr. Weiss.<\/p>\n

Opinion: Does Ottawa think simply creating a new financial crime agency solves everything?<\/a><\/p>\n

According to Coin ATM Radar, a site designed to locate crypto ATMs worldwide, Canada has the second-highest number of crypto ATMs in the world, with nearly 4,000 across the country. <\/p>\n

In 2025, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre documented just over $177.5-million in reported losses from cryptocurrency-related payment methods. Cryptocurrency is being leveraged by fraudsters as it becomes difficult to trace or recover funds once they are sent, it added. <\/p>\n

While these numbers are not specifically linked with crypto ATMs, based on reporting trends, the centre believes a significant portion of these reports represent crypto ATM fraud, it said in an e-mailed statement.<\/p>\n

The Canadian Association of Retired Persons welcomed the proposed legislation, writing in a news release that it had been calling for a measure to be put in place, and raised its concerns to the Department of Finance. Crypto ATMs have been used at staggering rates, the association wrote, and are increasingly used to target Canadians, but especially older adults.<\/p>\n

The perceived benefit of these machines, it added, does not outweigh the risks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A regular ATM and a Bitcoin ATM at a convenience store in downtown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[61,113,137],"class_list":{"0":"post-34827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ottawa","8":"tag-ottawa","9":"tag-politics","10":"tag-yesapplenews"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}