SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash., May 12, 2026, 01:28 PDT
Spokane Valley has shut down virtual currency kiosks—machines that swap physical cash for cryptocurrency—after police connected them to a spike in fraud, hefty financial losses, and a suicide. On May 5, the city council signed off unanimously on Ordinance 26-005, creating a new chapter in the municipal code to officially ban the kiosks.
The vote arrives against a backdrop of worsening scam numbers. According to the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report, there were 13,460 complaints linked to cryptocurrency ATMs and kiosks—losses totaled $389 million, a 58% jump from 2024. Americans over 60 accounted for $257.5 million of that sum.
So, local governments are stepping up their response. A virtual currency kiosk works like this: someone puts in cash and transfers digital currency—most often bitcoin—to another person’s wallet. When it comes to fraud, police point to the speed of these transactions. Once crypto is sent, tracing it is tough, and getting the money back is rarely possible.
Spokane Valley Police Chief Dave Ellis described the kiosks as “a tool to facilitate scams,” he told the council. Businesses now have 30 days to get rid of them. Miss that deadline, and owners could see a $250 fine, plus the city has the option to pull the business license, according to the Spokesman-Review. Spokesman-Review
Detective Elijah Jones pointed to scams where scammers pose as officials, telling people they missed jury duty or have an outstanding warrant, then press for thousands via a kiosk. “We can’t go to the ATM and get it back,” Jones said, per the report. Spokesman-Review
Regulators in Washington state, along with the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, have flagged crypto kiosks as a tool in various scams—tech-support and bank-imposter frauds among them—which often target older adults. Washington’s Department of Financial Institutions has told kiosk operators to make it clear to users: sending money to a scammer could leave them with no way to recover their funds.
Minnesota moved further that week. On May 5, Gov. Tim Walz signed legislation that will ban virtual currency kiosks across the state starting Aug. 1, 2026, with operators facing a deadline of Dec. 31, 2026 to pull all public kiosks. The law spells out how customers can claim certain leftover funds.
Earlier, Minnesota officials pointed out that existing rules failed to prevent such losses. According to the Star Tribune, the state Department of Commerce logged 120 complaints about virtual-currency kiosks between 2023 and 2025, with reported losses approaching $1 million. “There is no such thing as a safe crypto kiosk in Minnesota,” said Sara Payne, assistant commerce commissioner. Star Tribune
The market is dominated by a handful of kiosk operators—Bitcoin Depot, CoinFlip, and Athena Bitcoin among them—each of which has drawn scrutiny or legal trouble in certain areas. Indiana and Tennessee, this year, have taken steps to ban or heavily limit virtual currency kiosks, tightening the screws on a sector that expanded by planting machines in gas stations, convenience stores, and other retail spots.
The bans come with their own set of headaches: fraud could just migrate to different payment methods, and people using crypto for legitimate reasons might find themselves cut off from cash. CoinFlip’s general counsel Larry Lipka pushed back before Minnesota legislators, insisting kiosk operators aren’t to blame. “It’s the scammers,” he told CBS Minnesota. CBS News
Following lobbying from Colin Hortman—the son of Melissa and Mark Hortman—Minnesota lawmakers this session pushed through separate public-safety bills. The measures, now law as of May 5, require police to disclose use of chemical irritants inside buildings and restrict how insurers can exclude coverage for property damage tied to chemical irritants, smoke screens, or diversionary devices.
In Spokane Valley, officials are now focusing on delaying that narrow window—panic to payment—when it comes to crypto-kiosks. According to police, scammers have used these machines to instantly convert a phone scam into an untraceable payout. The bans are intended to cut off that path, stopping more people from dropping cash at a kiosk after getting duped.
