American Cities Are Quietly Declaring War on Crypto ATMs
Spokane Valley, Washington became the latest US city to ban cryptocurrency ATMs this week, joining a growing list of municipalities that have decided the machines cause more harm than good. The vote was unanimous. The reason, as it almost always is with these bans, comes down to fraud - specifically the kind where someone gets a panicked phone call from a "government official" and ends up feeding $300,000 in cash into a machine at a gas station.
Spokane Valley police cited exactly that type of case when presenting the ban. The crypto gets sent, the transaction settles in minutes, and the money is essentially gone. No chargebacks, no bank to call, no realistic path to recovery.
This Is Now a Pattern
Spokane Valley is not acting alone. In April, Haverhill, Massachusetts banned crypto kiosks after city residents lost over $1 million to crypto scams across 33 reported incidents. Heber City, Utah passed a similar ordinance on May 1, becoming the second Utah municipality to do so after Layton City moved in March.
The machines themselves are legal at the federal level, regulated loosely as money services businesses under FinCEN. Local governments are filling the gap because they are the ones getting the calls from constituents who got cleaned out.
Who Is Actually Using These Machines
The legitimate use case for a crypto ATM is sending money quickly to someone who does not have a bank account or a Coinbase login. Operators charge fees between 12% and 25% per transaction - steep, but for some users it is the most accessible on-ramp available.
Scammers specifically instruct victims to use crypto ATMs because the barriers are low, the transaction is fast, and the irreversibility is built-in. Law enforcement has documented this playbook extensively, and the pattern holds whether the victim is in Massachusetts, Washington, or Utah.
The Bigger Picture
These local bans are largely symbolic in the national context - roughly 35,000 crypto ATMs operate in the United States as of early 2026. But the trend points to a tension in how crypto gets regulated at the grassroots level. While federal lawmakers debate the CLARITY Act and institutional players announce ETFs, individual city councils are making pragmatic calls based on police reports and constituent complaints.
The machines have a legitimate purpose, but if operators do not address the fraud problem at scale, more cities will make the same call Spokane Valley just did. Consumer protection at the local level does not wait for federal frameworks to catch up.
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Author: Alan Ward
Seattle News Desk
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