Canada proposes banning all crypto ATMs, citing $704M in fraud losses in 2025.

Canada's Spring Economic Update 2026 has proposed an outright ban on crypto ATMs — a striking reversal for the country that installed the world's first such machine in a Vancouver coffee shop in 2013. The government cited Canadians losing more than $704 million to fraud in 2025, with total reported losses since 2022 exceeding $2.4 billion. Officials described the machines as a "primary method for scammers to defraud victims and for criminals to place their cash proceeds of crime."

The political logic is straightforward: crypto ATMs are physically visible, require minimal identity verification for sub-$1,000 transactions, and offer regulators a target they can explain in a single sentence. A 2023 FINTRAC internal analysis had already flagged bitcoin ATMs as likely to remain the dominant fraud-collection channel — that conclusion sat dormant while the network grew to nearly 4,000…