Dive Brief:

• Cryptocurrency ATM operator Bitcoin Depot has purchased about 400 bitcoin ATMs to be deployed by the end of the first quarter of this year, according to a Tuesday press release.
• Tuesday’s announcement comes less than a month after the Atlanta-based company said it would purchase 500 bitcoin ATMs from ATM manufacturer Genmega. The combined total of 900 machines will help Bitcoin Depot reach its goal of operating about 8,000 bitcoin ATMs in the U.S. and Canada by the end of the year, the release said.
• “We're seeing a lot of demand for kiosks,” Bitcoin Depot COO Scott Buchanan said in a Wednesday interview. “A lot of retailers are interested in adding Bitcoin ATMs for their locations.”

Dive Insight:

Bitcoin Depot operates about 6,980 bitcoin ATMs in the U.S. and Canada, Buchanan said. The number of machines goes up and down because the company is constantly removing and relocating the machines, he said. Buchanan pointed to crypto ATM locator website Coin ATM Radar for a reliable current count of the company’s bitcoin ATMs. Most of the 400 ATMs the company said Tuesday it’s purchasing will be installed in the U.S., he said.

“It's really about getting to that 8,000 number by the end of the year and getting there through just expansion across the across the US broadly. It's gonna go in all sorts of retailers, ” Buchanan said of the company’s plans to deploy more ATMs.

The expansion plan comes on the heels of regulatory challenges in California last October. A law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom limited daily deposits and withdrawals to $1,000 a day and capped operator fees at 15% of a transaction’s value. But other states have not followed suit since then, according to Buchanan. “Nothing else close to California has been passed,” he said.

Bitcoin has seen a “pretty strong bull run” in the past few months, according to Buchanan, who attributed some of that growth to the approval of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds last month. “The price is up at $51,000 now, which is the highest it's been in multiple years,” he said.

Bitcoin Depot was publicly listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange last July, after merging with special purpose acquisition company GSR II Meteora. The bitcoin ATM operator was the first company of its kind to go public, according to a report from cryptocurrency news site Decrypt.