On 08SEP2025, the District of Columbia’s Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Athena, a “Bitcoin ATM machine” provider with 4100+ BTMs installed. Athena charges as much as a 26% fee when someone deposits cash to buy cryptocurrency. More importantly, the lawsuit claims that 93% of all deposits into Athena “BTMs” in the DC area were made by scam victims.
The main argument made by this lawsuit is that Athena knows that it is facilitating fraud, it is making substantial profit from that fraud (up to 26% per transaction), and that it refuses to refund money to the victims, despite 1/4th of the money still being in Athena’s coffers after a transaction!
The DC AG goes further, with a very significant accusation:
“Athena also has allowed elderly consumers to deposit very large amounts of cash over short time periods into wallets that Athena knew had already been used by other scam victims. Athena’s ineffective oversight procedures have created an unchecked pipeline for illicit international fraud transactions.”
Despite included statistics showing only 1.2% of elders invest in Bitcoin, the vast majority of BTM deposits are made by those over the age of 60. The FBI’s IC3.gov in 2023 reported $124 Million in Bitcoin ATM scams against those over 60, compared to $33 Million for all other ages combined.
In response to the common claim that Bitcoin ATMs are intended to help the “unbanked”, there is nothing to support that claim. Compare that statistic to an FDIC Survey of “unbanked” Americans, which showed that only 1.2% of “unbanked” citizens use crypto for any reason other than “Investment.” I loved this survey question by the FDIC in their 2023 survey.
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| https://www.fdic.gov/household-survey/2023-fdic-national-survey-unbanked-and-underbanked-households-report |
The FDIC Survey also broke down crypto usage by household income.
While the DC AG’s lawsuit is significant, it was not the first. Iowa’s Attorney General filed two similar lawsuits, one against Coinflip and the other against Bitcoin Depot. (Click to see a list of the Factual Allegations for each.) Iowa’s lawsuits show that Coinflip BTMs in Iowa were used to assist in the theft of $13 Million from scam victims between Jan 2021 and June 2024, while Bitcoin Depot BTMs in Iowa were used to assist in the theft of $7.2 Million between October 2021 and July 2023. That’s $20 Million in scams in a state with only 3.2 million residents.
My favorite quote from Iowa:
“At best, Bitcoin Depot is a willfully blind participant in the victimization of hundreds of Iowans. At worst it is a silent partner to many scammers’ preying on Iowans, taking a cut of each scam with its excessive and deceptive BTM fees that are further paired with a lack of refunds.”
This analyst would believe that statement could be applied to every “Bitcoin ATM” in every state.
While the process of using a BTM involves the display of several warnings and disclaimers, the lawsuits point out that the elderly victims of these scams are almost always on the phone with a scammer while they conduct the transaction, who is warning them to ignore all of these disclaimers. But the disclaimer itself is given as evidence that the BTM providers are fully aware that their company is being used to facilitate significant volumes of fraud against the elderly, and that this fraud is providing significant revenue to said companies. These images are from the DC AG v. Athena complaint:
Bitcoin Depot has over 8,000 BTMs, but boasts more than 16,000 locations where you can buy cryptocurrency (including their “BDCheckout” where you can purchase crypto at a cash register.) Here’s a location breakdown by state, including 414 Iowa locations (and 399 in my home state, Alabama!):
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| http://branches.bitcoindepot.com/ |
Coinflip has over 5500+ BTM locations and claims to have processed at least $4 Billion in transactions. But what percentage of those transactions are fraudulent?
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| https://coinflip.tech/about |
