California county to regulate Bitcoin ATMs backed by state

Chico, a city in California wants state-level laws and local regulations to work collaboratively. Chief administrative officer Andy Pickett who is the County of Butte discussed the ongoing efforts to regulate Bitcoin ATMs during a discussion on August 7 in front of a local government committee. Current state-level legislation to restrict fraud cases involving Bitcoin ATMs has reported by Pickett.

According to a congressional study conducted in California in October 2023, certain cryptocurrency ATMs were charging as much as a 33% premium, and some of them had $50,000 maximum restrictions.

Therefore, a bill passed restricting daily deposits to $1,000. Furthermore, California requires all cryptocurrency ATM transfers to include receipts and the operator’s name disclosed. Pickett has increased the impact by announcing that a bill that will govern Bitcoin ATM use more like a bank will go into force in July 2025.

Pickett went on to emphasize the necessity of local Bitcoin ATM regulation. he mentioned that to regulate the Bitcoin machines, each jurisdiction needs to pass their ordinance, and any ordinance would likely challenged in court.

The City of Chico presently has 347 operational cryptocurrency ATMs, according to Coin ATM Radar. This is an impressive amount of ATMs comparing to the total number of ATMs in big economies, such as Hong Kong, Spain, Poland, and New Zealand, among others.

With 31,649 machines, the United States makes up 82.6% of the whole Bitcoin ATM network worldwide. Australia is in third place with 3% (1,143 ATMs), followed by Canada with 7.7% (2,961 ATMs).

As the following map shows, 2,872 cryptocurrency ATMs are located throughout various jurisdictions in California. The first drop in Bitcoin ATM installations this year occurred in July when 660 crypto ATMs taken down from the global network.