According to a recent report published by ResearchandMarkets, the digital currency ATM market is expected to grow tenfold to nearly $145 million in the next five years – this is based on a forecast that has found that the industry has a compound annual growth rate of 54.7 percent.
This forecasted growth of the market has been turning a lot of heads mostly because it represents a very huge bump, especially when compared to its current $16.3 million value. Nevertheless, this might a well be possible since the market has seen a ton of developments and growth in various regions and sectors. For instance, Coin ATM Radar reports that there are currently 3,687 bitcoin ATMs in a total of 74 countries. In May, the total number of ATMs was 3,000.
Available data show that of the existing ATMs, close to 67.5 percent are one-way. Also, most (over 2,000) of these machines are located in the United States. As such, the United States joins Japan and Germany in being among the regions where the ATM market is growing at a very rapid pace thanks to the widespread adoption of digital currencies by their citizens.
The Drawbacks
One of the issues that will impede the industry’s growth is already becoming a problem – that is, the traditional ATM manufacturers who consider digital currencies to be a threat to their business. The tag of war already kicked off in May when Cardtronics, the world’s largest ATM operator in its annual report pinpointed digital currencies as one of the major risks to the company’s business. Cardtronic’s concerns are genuine but everything seems to be moving towards the inevitable widespread use of electronic forms of payment instead of tradition currencies, which means that the use of ATMs is going to decline regardless of the number of players in the ATM manufacturing industry.
Another issue that was identified by the report was regulatory uncertainty – this, in addition to lack of awareness and technical understanding of digital currencies and blockchain technology, will limit the growth of the crypto industry and this will, in turn, pull the crypto ATM industry back with it.
“Uncertain regulatory status of cryptocurrencies and lack of awareness and technical understanding regarding cryptocurrencies restrict the market growth for crypto ATM manufacturers and operators. Further, concern regarding security and privacy is expected to pose a challenge to the market players,” the report read.
At the moment, all eyes seem to be on the regulatory authorities simply because their policies and regulations will have a ripple effect that is definitely going to reflect when we get to 2023.
