Coinme Agrees to Exit Crypto Kiosks in 34 Jurisdictions by January 1, 2027, or Owe a Further $4 Million

Coinme Inc. faces an additional $4 million penalty if it has not ceased virtual currency kiosk operations in every participating jurisdiction before January 1, 2027. The deadline comes from a multistate settlement agreement and consent order that Washington's Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) announced on October 8, 2026. The obligation "shall be incurred as of January 1, 2027," the order says, with payment due within 20 days after Coinme receives payment instructions from a participating state. Operating a kiosk in a participating state after that date also "will be a violation of this Order and any Participating State may take action to enforce these provisions."

The settlement gives Coinme a negotiated exit rather than revoking its licenses. The Seattle-based money transmitter neither admits nor denies wrongdoing and will pay $2.5 million in penalties and costs. Coinme's kiosk business runs on partner-owned Coinstar coin-counting machines in supermarkets, so the exit removes Coinme's cash-to-crypto option from those kiosks in the 34 jurisdictions. Regulators state in the order that they intend to close the examination without further action and approve the change-of-control notices filed for Polygon Labs Holdings' planned acquisition of Coinme's parent. Washington DFI is taking a different approach in its pending case against CoinFlip, where it is seeking license revocation and a personal bar on the CEO. Coinme has agreed to shut down its kiosk operations, but has not done so yet.

Missing the kiosk deadline brings a penalty and a violation

Paying the $4 million would not let Coinme keep operating. The order imposes two separate consequences if Coinme misses the deadline. Failure to cease kiosk operations in all participating states before January 1, 2027 triggers the Additional Penalty of $4,000,000.00, divided among participating states under Appendix D. Continued operation also violates the order, giving any participating state grounds to enforce it independently. A state could collect the $4 million and still bring an action over machines that remain in service.

DFI's press release describes the shutdown deadline as "by the end of the year." The order is more precise: operations must cease before January 1, 2027, and the penalty obligation attaches on January 1 itself.

The kiosks are Coinstar machines, and Coinstar has a second crypto product

Coinme does not run a fleet of purpose-built Bitcoin ATMs. Its kiosk business is the "Buy Bitcoin" option on Coinstar's coin-counting machines in supermarkets, under a partnership the two companies announced on January 17, 2019. The customer inserts paper cash (coins are not accepted), the kiosk prints a voucher with a redemption code, and the customer claims the cryptocurrency afterward through a Coinme account. The launch set a $2,500 per-transaction limit. Coinstar is also an investor in Coinme. We explain why this voucher model is not a Bitcoin ATM in a separate analysis.

The network grew from about 2,100 kiosk locations in April 2019 to more than 5,000 in 40 states by December 2020. Coinme's website now advertises more than 6,000 Coinstar kiosks, and its 2024 lawsuit against Coinstar put the deployment at about 10,000 kiosks and roughly $1 billion in cumulative crypto purchases, according to GeekWire's account of the complaint. None of these figures is a verified count of machines active in the 34 participating jurisdictions.

The order never names Coinstar, but its definitions were written for this arrangement. "Virtual Currency Kiosk Operations" covers depositing money into a kiosk as part of a virtual currency transaction "regardless of the ownership or control of the specific Virtual Currency Kiosk utilized during the transaction." Coinme's option must therefore come off Coinstar machines in every participating state; the machines themselves, and their coin-counting business, are untouched. Coinme's separately advertised checkout-counter network is not a kiosk business and should not be counted as part of the exit.

Cash-to-crypto at Coinstar kiosks may not end with Coinme. Since 2024, Coinstar has offered its own wallet, CINQ by Coinstar, powered by Zero Hash, and its website says both options sit on the kiosks "to provide customers with more options." That second product is in dispute between the partners. Coinme sued Coinstar in King County Superior Court on October 9, 2024, alleging Coinstar used Coinme's confidential information to build CINQ and then favored it on the kiosks, and said its kiosk volumes fell substantially in August 2024 as CINQ rolled out nationwide, GeekWire reported. We found no public ruling in that case and no statement from either company on how the settlement affects the kiosk program. The order binds only Coinme; whether CINQ stays on Coinstar machines after Coinme leaves is a decision for Coinstar and Zero Hash, which are not parties to it.

BitcoinATM.news excludes Coinme's voucher kiosks from its directory because they run on shared Coinstar hardware with delayed settlement rather than as direct-settlement Bitcoin ATMs. Our Washington location tracker therefore covers six other operators and 259 active kiosks in the state, led by CoinFlip (110), Bitstop (62) and RockItCoin (39), and cannot establish how many Coinstar machines will lose Coinme's service. The broader Washington market is already shrinking: our archive of CoinATMRadar listings shows a decline from 296 listed kiosks on January 21, 2026 to 247 on October 9 (down 17%), with 1 install against 24 removals in the last 30 days. (Our listing sync had gaps from March 24 to April 1 and April 2 to June 12, 2026, so removals in those windows carry the resume date.)

The $2.5 million payment includes no consumer restitution

Of the $2.5 million, $2,200,000 is an Administrative Penalty distributed by state under Appendix B. The remaining $300,000 covers Administrative Costs paid to states listed in Appendix C that "took part in the investigation or settlement." DFI's order summary says the total includes a payment to Washington's Financial Literacy and Education fund.

Appendix B assigns different penalty amounts to participating states. The portion reviewed includes these allocations:

No portion is earmarked for consumers. The multistate order specifies no restitution or victim-compensation payment. Washington's 2025 Statement of Charges had sought consumer restitution, according to the research dossier, but the settlement does not include it.

Examiners identified AML, net worth and accounting deficiencies

Regulators from Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and South Dakota conducted the multistate examination, which began in June 2025 and covered March 31, 2023 through March 31, 2025. The resulting Report of Examination identified "serious deficiencies," according to the order, including gaps in Coinme's transaction monitoring controls, know-your-customer policies, suspicious activity reporting, enhanced due diligence and recordkeeping. DFI's release cites two further findings: Coinme failed to comply with state net worth requirements and had poor accounting practices.

Combined with "insufficient responses to violations and deficiencies alleged in past examinations," those problems "perpetuated a high-risk environment for its kiosk business that left it vulnerable to exploitation by criminal actors," the order states. They are regulators' findings in a settlement that Coinme neither admits nor denies. The order also credits Coinme with "material enhancements" to its BSA/AML program during and after the examination period. Because the examination report itself is not public, transaction-level findings such as scam volumes or victim ages are unavailable.

"State regulation of money services exists to protect consumers from scams and bad actors," DFI Director Charlie Clark said in the October 8 release. "DFI will continue to take action against companies that pose unfair risks to Washington consumers."

An outside consultant will oversee Coinme's AML rebuild

Coinme's kiosk exit will not end its duties under the order. It remains a licensed money transmitter and must rebuild its AML program under outside supervision. The order sets the following schedule:

The board retains "ultimate responsibility" for compliance. An internal Compliance Management Committee must meet at least quarterly. Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio and Washington make up the Executive Committee overseeing the order; DFI credits those same seven states with leading the action. DFI's order summary also requires Coinme to replace operational managers responsible for compliance requirements.

Regulators intend to approve Polygon's change-of-control notices

The order's recitals connect the settlement with a corporate deal. Polygon Labs Holdings (Cayman) Ltd., through merger subsidiaries to be renamed Polygon Orchestrator, Inc., intends to acquire Coinme's parent, Coinme Holdings Inc. Polygon filed advance change notices in each participating state. Regulators stated their intention to resolve the examination violations through this order, close the examination "with no further investigation or action," and approve the notices.

Restrictions on former operational managers were a substantial consideration in that approval, according to the research dossier's account of the order. The order does not identify the acquisition as the reason Coinme agreed to leave the kiosk business, or assign the decision a single cause. The kiosk exit, management change and monitored AML rebuild all sit alongside the regulators' stated intention to approve the change-of-control notices.

CoinFlip faces proposed revocation in a separate Washington case

Washington DFI is pursuing different remedies against another kiosk operator. On August 26, 2026, it issued a Statement of Charges against CoinFlip that seeks to revoke its license, bar the company and CEO Benjamin Weiss for 10 years, impose a $1,029,600 fine and order refunds. Those remedies remain proposals in a contested proceeding, not a final order. CoinFlip has not been found liable, its license has not been revoked, and no fine has been imposed.

Coinme, by contrast, stays licensed, neither admits nor denies the allegations, and pays a fixed penalty while agreeing to replace operational managers responsible for compliance. Against CoinFlip, regulators seek the most severe administrative remedies available, including a personal sanction against a named executive. The Coinme order notes that each regulator has authority "to revoke the license of entities who have violated their respective laws." The states did not exercise that authority here. A buyer seeking regulatory approval is one public difference between the cases. The order does not address whether other operators facing examinations might negotiate a similar exit.

DFI's release and the order differ on the jurisdiction count

DFI's release says "WA DFI and 34 other regulators reached a settlement," implying 35 jurisdictions. Appendix A of the order, as reviewed in the research dossier, and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors' announcement instead count 34 participating agencies in total: 32 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, including Washington and West Virginia. This article uses the order's count. The dates differ slightly, too: DFI's order summary lists October 7, 2026 as the issue date, while the release announcing it is dated October 8.

Consumers have complaint channels, but no settlement refund

Consumers who lost money through a Coinme-enabled kiosk should not expect compensation under this settlement; it has no restitution provision. Washington residents can file complaints about crypto kiosks or money transmission through DFI's online complaint form. Residents of other states can contact their own money transmission regulator. Our consumer protection resources explain how to report kiosk scams, and readers can compare operators' enforcement records in the operators directory.

Counting from October 9, Coinme has 83 days to wind down kiosk operations across 34 jurisdictions. If it has not ceased operations in every participating jurisdiction before January 1, the additional $4 million penalty is incurred that day. Any continued operation would also violate the order and could bring enforcement action by a participating state.