FBI reports new highs of Bitcoin ATM fraud in 2025

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has revealed that Bitcoin ATM fraud reached new highs in 2025. According to the report, scammers stole close to $33 million from victims. The FBI noted that in most cases, scammers impersonated either a company or a bank to carry out their illicit activities.

The FBI claimed that some bad actors went as far as calling their victims and advising them to deposit money into a Bitcoin ATM to protect their funds. The criminals would tell them that their accounts have been compromised, riding on the panic to push them into sending the funds via a Bitcoin ATM for safekeeping.

Instead, the money goes to a wallet or account maintained by the hacker or another person in their network.

Bitcoin ATM fraud hits a new record in 2025

Bitcoin ATMs increased in popularity in the United States, with more than 30,000 machines in the state in 2024. The figure represents 81.27% of the total Bitcoin ATMs in the world, according to Finance Magnates.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) mentioned that more than 10,000 people were victims of Bitcoin ATM fraud in 2025 alone. The agency mentioned that there were over 12,000 complaints from January to December in 2025.

In its statement, the FBI also mentioned that the monetary value lost to criminals reached $333.5 million, an increase compared to the same time span last year.

In 2024, the FTC reported that digital assets scams in particular were more financially devastating than other types of fraud, noting that midway through the year, the median loss reported by individuals related to crypto fraud was $5,400. The median individual loss tied to reports of general fraud stood at $447.

The FBI mentioned that the amount lost to the criminals has been on the rise with each passing year. Data from the FTC showed that Bitcoin ATMs were responsible for $114 million in reported losses in 2023 and $78 million in losses in 2022. This means that the reported losses due to Bitcoin ATM fraud more than doubled in the last two years.

Notably, these are figures of reported losses, with the FTC not accounting for losses that were not reported.

FTC urges users to be cautious

The FTC has advised people to pay close attention to all red flags when making transactions with Bitcoin ATMs. They have also advised people to double-check with their financial officer or banks whenever they are contacted by someone they do not know to deposit funds in a Bitcoin ATM.

The agency also advised individuals to slow down and not allow the other person at the end of the line to rush them into making payments, noting that they should discuss things with people around them before making any payment.

Bitcoin has been one of the few instruments used to carry out fraud, with criminals choosing to use the asset because of its privacy-focused transactions.

The FTC has also warned that government agencies and legitimate businesses will not contact users and ask them to pay for services in Bitcoin. Except otherwise stated, users should not pay for any service or goods using Bitcoin ATMs. In a case where someone is hounding them, they should report to the police.

While fraud does not only affect certain demographics, scammers have been targeting the older generations more. This is because they are susceptible to crypto crimes, the data shows.

In the report, victims 60 and above account for 715 of the reported losses using Bitcoin ATMs during the first half of 2024, losing $46 million according to the FTC. In some cases, the criminals used AI deepfakes of a family member, asking the elderly person to pay Bitcoin in exchange for their release from the police station.

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