Key Takeaways

Disabled machines may remain in retail locations until December 31.

Minnesota recorded 134 complaints and nearly $1 million in losses from 2023 through 2025.

Bitcoin Depot cited state bans and tighter regulation among the pressures behind its shutdown.

Minnesota Chapter 65 prohibits anyone from installing, operating, maintaining or making a virtual currency kiosk available for use in the state.

The ban covers physical terminals that exchange cash, bank credit or another cryptocurrency for virtual currency. Minnesota residents can still own, trade and transfer digital assets through other legal channels.

Machines Must Be Offline Before They Are Removed

Operators had to stop making their kiosks available on August 1, but they have until December 31 to remove machines that remain visible or accessible in public locations.

The December deadline applies to physical removal. It does not allow the machines to continue processing transactions through the end of the year.

The Minnesota Department of Commerce said it would work with operators to take the kiosks offline by August 1 and remove them from retail locations by December 31.

The law does not require one specific method for disabling every terminal. An operator could disconnect the power, shut down the software, lock the cash acceptor or remove the machine early, provided that it can no longer complete a transaction.

This creates a practical issue during the transition. A kiosk may still be standing in a gas station or convenience store even though using it is illegal. A lit screen or a machine without a clear notice could leave customers unsure whether it has actually been disabled.

In practice, identifying terminals that remain active may require cooperation from operators, host retailers and members of the public. Physical kiosks are visible, but inspecting every retail location still takes time.

Operators that conducted transactions exclusively through kiosks must also settle any money or cryptocurrency they continue to hold for customers by December 31.

Customers can choose between:

• A US-dollar payment based on the market value of their cryptocurrency, plus any fiat balance.
• A transfer of the full balance to a cryptocurrency wallet selected by the customer.

The payout requirement does not apply when the operator provides another lawful way for customers to access, transfer or redeem the same funds.

Warnings and Limits Did Not Stop Coached Victims

The ban followed an earlier attempt to regulate crypto kiosks without removing them.

Minnesota's previous rules required fraud warnings, transaction disclosures and receipts. They also imposed a $2,000 daily limit on new customers and provided limited refund rights for some fraudulently induced transactions.

Those safeguards assumed that a warning or transaction limit could interrupt a suspicious payment. Minnesota Commerce said scammers adapted by remaining on the phone, telling victims how to answer the machine's prompts and dividing larger amounts into smaller deposits.

A person who believes that a relative has been arrested or that a government agency requires immediate payment may not evaluate an on-screen warning independently. The scammer can explain away each alert while keeping the victim focused on urgency and fear.

That makes disclosure-based protection less effective in scams built around continuous remote coaching. The Federal Trade Commission has published consumer alerts describing this exact pattern, in which impersonation scammers stay on the line while directing victims to convert cash at a nearby kiosk.

Minnesota Recorded Nearly $1 Million in Losses

Minnesota recorded 134 complaints tied specifically to cryptocurrency kiosk scams between 2023 and 2025, with reported losses approaching $1 million.

Seventy of those cases occurred in 2025 and produced more than $540,000 in losses. State officials placed the average loss at nearly $6,800 per transaction and warned that embarrassment or fear may prevent some victims from reporting what happened.

Crypto kiosks also typically charge transaction fees well above those of online exchanges, which means victims' effective losses can exceed the amount they intended to send.

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center provides broader national context, but its dataset is not directly comparable with Minnesota's figure. The federal category includes complaints in which a cryptocurrency kiosk may have appeared alongside other payment methods, and the FBI warns that the full reported loss cannot always be attributed to the kiosk itself.

IC3 received 13,460 complaints involving cryptocurrency kiosks in 2025, with adjusted losses of approximately $389 million. More than half involved people over 50, who accounted for more than $302 million.

Those figures show the national scale of the problem. Minnesota's narrower dataset remains the appropriate measure of the losses state officials directly connected to local kiosks.

The Ban Removes a Fast Cash-to-Crypto Route

Cryptocurrency kiosks did not create the impersonation, romance or emergency scams behind the reported losses.

The machines gave scammers a fast way to turn a victim's cash into an irreversible blockchain transfer. A criminal could send a wallet address or QR code, direct the victim to a nearby kiosk and guide the entire payment remotely.

The fraudulent calls can continue after the ban. Victims may instead be directed toward gift cards, bank transfers or online cryptocurrency platforms.

Minnesota is removing the physical point that allowed cash to be converted into cryptocurrency and sent outside the victim's control within minutes. The policy's broader effect will depend on whether total scam losses fall or whether criminals simply redirect victims toward another irreversible payment method.

Cash Users Also Lose a Physical Access Point

For some Minnesotans, a kiosk in a nearby gas station or convenience store was the most practical way to convert cash into cryptocurrency.

This mattered to people without traditional bank accounts, those paid largely in cash and users who could not or did not want to connect their finances to an online exchange.

Online platforms remain legal, but they often require a bank account, payment card, digital identity checks and reliable internet access. They are not an equivalent substitute for every former kiosk customer.

There is no authoritative national count showing how many Americans relied on crypto ATMs because they were unbanked or underbanked. The United States hosts the largest concentration of cryptocurrency ATMs of any country, according to industry tracker Coin ATM Radar, which underscores how widely the cash-to-crypto model had spread. Bitcoin Depot's former network illustrates that reach at the company level.

In its 2025 annual filing, the company reported approximately 9,700 active kiosks across 48 US states and several international markets. It estimated that it controlled about 23% of the US cash-to-Bitcoin kiosk market.

On May 18, Bitcoin Depot entered Chapter 11, began winding down and took its machine network offline. The company cited tighter transaction limits, state bans, litigation and regulatory enforcement among the pressures that had made the business increasingly difficult to sustain.

Anti-fraud rules increased the cost and legal risk of operating the machines, while continued scam losses pushed several states toward stricter restrictions. As operators withdrew, legitimate cash users lost the service as well.

Minnesota's law reflects that trade-off: one high-risk payment channel is being removed, along with a physical access point used by some customers for lawful transactions.

Other States Are Moving in the Same Direction

Minnesota is not acting alone.

Indiana became the first US state to enact a statewide crypto kiosk ban through House Enrolled Act 1116, signed in March 2026.

Tennessee also prohibited virtual currency kiosks, making their knowing installation or operation a Class A misdemeanor.

These are separate state decisions rather than a coordinated federal policy. No federal agency has banned cryptocurrency kiosks outright, leaving the regulatory response to a patchwork of state laws, FTC consumer alerts, and law-enforcement actions by agencies including the FBI and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The development of these state bans has followed a similar pattern: lawmakers first imposed warnings, transaction limits and operator duties, then moved toward prohibition when reported losses continued.

With several states now taking the same approach, Minnesota's results will help show whether removing the machines reduces overall fraud losses or mainly changes how scammers collect payments.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or legal advice. Anyone affected by a crypto kiosk transaction should contact the operator, local law enforcement, the Minnesota Department of Commerce and the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center.

Methodology: The article uses Minnesota Session Law 2026, Chapter 65; Minnesota's previous virtual currency kiosk rules; complaint and loss data from the Minnesota Department of Commerce; national complaint data and methodology disclosures from the FBI; Bitcoin Depot's 2025 SEC filing and May 18 Chapter 11 announcement; official Indiana and Tennessee information concerning their statewide kiosk bans; FTC consumer alerts on cryptocurrency kiosk fraud; and Coin ATM Radar data on global ATM distribution.