El Salvador is the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin nationally. So it would be logical for it to have the largest network of cryptocurrency ATMs. Although President Nayib Bukele decided to install more than 200 of these ATMs across the country, it was not enough to take the lead even in 2021. The United States and Canada had more. In 2022, they expanded the network of ATMs in Spain and Australia. El Salvador thus moved up to fifth place.
Australia was mainly active at the end of the year when they managed to install 113 crypto ATMs in the last 3 months. As of yesterday, there were 219 devices active in Australia. El Salvador currently has 212.
There are 38,602 crypto exchange ATMs installed worldwide, of which 6,071 were installed in 2022 . Of course, some are being cancelled, but the year-on-year total increase is still a nice 4,244 units. In terms of continents, North America leads (94.4%), followed by Europe (3.9%), Asia (0.8%), Oceania (0.6%), South America (0.3%) and last is Africa with 28 ATMs (0.1%). If Australia can keep up the pace of the end of the year, they will soon be in third place.
With regard to the efforts of central banks to introduce their own digital currencies, efforts towards a wider adoption of cryptocurrencies can also be seen. The option of purchasing at ATMs is definitely a way to simplify the process. Although the purchase fees are quite high compared to exchanges.
