The machines look like ordinary ATMs, and they are designed to give customers access to a variety of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin by inserting cash.

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Author: Gordon Severson

Published: 8:24 PM CDT April 10, 2026

Updated: 8:24 PM CDT April 10, 2026

SAINT PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Senate approved a bill Thursday that would ban cryptocurrency kiosks in Minnesota.

These machines look like ordinary ATMs, and they are designed to give customers access to a variety of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, by inserting cash in exchange for digital currency.

Fraud experts say the machines are often used by scammers to steal their victims’ money.

“It’s so easy to go to a bitcoin ATM and put in money and have that money be gone immediately,” Parker Maertz with the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office explains.

Maertz and his colleagues have worked on several cases where Minnesotans were scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars using cryptocurrency machines.

The Iowa Attorney General’s Office released a study that showed over three years, around 98% of the transactions at Iowa cryptocurrency machines were directly connected to scams.

“This bill will eliminate some of the immediate ability to throw money away,” Maertz says.

Brooklyn Park Police Sgt. Jake Tuzinski agrees that banning these machines will stop many scammers from stealing money, but he’s worried about where the scammers will go next.

“The machines are just the medium, the facilitator, the intermediary. Scams involving cryptocurrency will still exist if these ATMs get banned,” Sgt. Tuzinski says.

He’s worried that scammers may pivot to other forms of payment, such as untraceable gift cards.

He says it’s also possible that scammers will try to use 3rd party cryptocurrency exchanges online to steal their victims’ money.

“They can easily find another platform. I just don’t want us to lose steam on the scam world and to get complacent,” Sgt. Tuzinski says.

There is also a valid concern that scammers will simply ramp up their efforts in states where cryptocurrency ATMs are still allowed.

According to the AARP, more than 20 states have restrictions against cryptocurrency ATMs.

Indiana is the only state that currently has an outright ban in place.

The proposed ban in Minnesota still has to be approved by the House and Governor Tim Walz.

DFL Senator Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger of Woodbury authored the bill in the Senate, and she says there is bipartisan support in the Minnesota House.

She is hopeful the bill will get passed later this session.