Wisconsin Reports Fewer Crypto ATM Scam Complaints Under Act 226, While Lawful Cash Buyers Lost Half the State's Kiosks

Wisconsin law-enforcement officials say they are seeing fewer cryptocurrency ATM scam complaints since Wisconsin Act 226 took effect, Wisconsin Watch reported in an investigation republished by Wausau Pilot & Review. The law limits daily transactions to $1,000 and requires identification, receipts and qualifying victim refunds. No Wisconsin agency has published complaint counts or loss totals to support the officials' account.

Meanwhile, the state lost more than half its listed machines. BitcoinATM.news's archive of CoinATMRadar listings shows 506 kiosks listed in Wisconsin on April 2, 2026, eight days before Act 226 took effect, and 238 on September 29, 2026. That is a 53% decline, or 268 fewer listings. Two operators, Athena Bitcoin and BudgetCoinz, no longer list a single Wisconsin machine.

The officials' accounts and our machine counts suggest Wisconsin's restrictions have cut kiosk scam activity, though no published figures establish how much. Lawful cash buyers also face the $1,000 cap and ID requirement, with half as many listed machines available. Wisconsinites without bank accounts or cards have the fewest alternatives.

Pennsylvania, North Carolina and other states weighing similar rules have both outcomes to consider. The Wisconsin Watch investigation also covers a court fight over money seized from a kiosk: Coinhub's operating company sought to recover $20,000 that a Wood County deputy seized and the sheriff returned to a scam victim. The case shows how recovery could work before refunds were law.

Officials report fewer complaints, but no agency has released counts

The reported decline comes from officials' observations, not a published dataset.

Wisconsin Watch also documented continuing consumer losses and criticism of the industry's fraud controls. Fewer complaints would not mean the losses have stopped.

For a pre-law reference point, the FBI counted 242 Wisconsin cryptocurrency-kiosk complaints in calendar 2025, with $7,309,714 in adjusted losses. The FBI cautions that those losses may include transactions through other channels. Neither the FBI nor a state agency has published a comparable post-law figure to measure against that baseline.

Act 226 requires limits, ID checks, receipts and refunds

DFI's public scam tracker records at least one refund under the new law. A Madison resident deposited $1,000 after a law-enforcement impersonation scam in August 2026 and received a full refund. That case establishes that the refund provision has been used, though not how often.

None of the four duties distinguishes a scam victim from anyone else at the machine. The cap and ID check apply to every transaction, whether or not fraud is involved.

Listed kiosks fell from 506 to 238

Complaint counts alone cannot distinguish a safer market from a smaller one. That would require a denominator, such as machines in service or dollars transacted. Our archive supplies the machine count.

Listings dropped from 506 to 259 across the sync gap, then declined from 259 to 238 between June 12 and September 29. Our log cannot pin down the removal dates for most of that contraction.

Athena Bitcoin and BudgetCoinz left the state entirely

Our archive records changes for five operators by name.

Bitstop listed more Wisconsin machines than any other operator in April. It now lists fewer than CoinFlip, which kept nearly its whole footprint. Our tracker shows no active Coinhub kiosks in Wisconsin and no Coinhub installs or removals there in the last 30 days.

Wisconsin cuts outpaced national declines

The national figures help distinguish Wisconsin's decline from changes across the same companies' networks. Our archive tracks three of these operators nationally over the same April 2 to September 29 window.

Each cut deeper in Wisconsin than nationally, particularly at Bitstop and Athena Bitcoin, is consistent with a state-specific retreat rather than a company-wide slump. Athena Bitcoin removed every Wisconsin machine while its national listings fell 10%.

The counts do not explain any operator's decision. No source we located has an operator attributing its Wisconsin exit to Act 226. Operators did oppose the bill: Bitcoin Depot, CoinFlip and Cash Depot were among those that registered opposition to AB 968, the measure that became Act 226.

Fewer machines may explain some of the complaint decline

Two officials from different agencies describe fewer complaints, DFI's tracker documents a refund, and the listed kiosk market shrank by more than half. Taken together, that evidence suggests Act 226 has reduced kiosk scam activity in Wisconsin. It does not measure the reduction or establish how the law produced it.

Scams could also move elsewhere. A scammer blocked at a Wisconsin kiosk can steer the same victim toward gift cards, wire transfers or a machine across the state line. Those losses leave kiosk tallies without leaving victims' accounts. Nothing in the Wisconsin Watch reporting indicates officials are tracking that shift.

Lawful cash buyers face the cap and fewer kiosks

Act 226's cap and ID rules bind scam victims and other kiosk customers alike. Operator exits reduced access for both groups. A retiree coached by a fake deputy and a customer buying bitcoin for their own wallet face the same limits.

We cannot say whether Wisconsin prices changed. Our crowdsourced fee corpus does not hold enough Wisconsin reports to summarise.

Underbanked customers have the fewest alternatives

A buyer with a bank account and a debit card can use an online exchange, where the kiosk cap does not apply. For someone who is unbanked or underbanked, a cash kiosk is one of very few ways to convert paper money into bitcoin at all.

Those buyers may have the most to gain from a payment system that does not require a bank. A lost machine is also harder for them to replace.

We have no data on who Wisconsin's remaining kiosk customers are, and no agency or operator has published cash-in volumes before or after the law. We cannot say how many lawful buyers were turned away by the cap or left without a nearby machine. Officials have described the change in scam complaints, but nobody has measured the accompanying change in lawful access.

A policy can be worth that trade. Scam losses at kiosks fall disproportionately on vulnerable people, and the $7.3 million FBI baseline for 2025 is not small. States considering Wisconsin's approach should also examine its cost to cash buyers. Legislators could assess whether narrower tools, such as refund duties and warnings without a cap as low as $1,000, would protect victims while preserving more access.

Wood County seized $20,000 from a Coinhub machine

Before Act 226, recovery after a kiosk scam in Wisconsin could depend on police seizing cash and a court deciding who owned it. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision in LSGT Services LLC v. County of Wood concerns one such dispute.

According to the opinion, in April 2024 an individual identified as S.A. "was scammed into paying $20,000 cash at a Coinhub ATM and transferring the bitcoin into the digital wallet of the unknown scammer."

A Wood County Sheriff's Department deputy then obtained a search warrant to seize $20,000 in cash from the Coinhub ATM that S.A. had used. The warrant stated that the $20,000 might constitute evidence of theft by fraud.

Coinhub petitioned under § 968.20

Coinhub's operating company petitioned under Wis. Stat. § 968.20 for return of the seized $20,000. The statute lets a court decide who owns seized property. Section 968.20(1g) states that the circuit court shall order the property returned to the claimant if the court determines any of the following:

Wood County told Coinhub and the court that the sheriff's department had already turned the $20,000 over to S.A. The County took no position on whether Coinhub had a right to the money. Instead, it argued that because it no longer possessed the $20,000, Coinhub had no right of recovery against it under § 968.20.

The circuit court dismissed, relying on Glass

According to the opinion, the circuit court "held a hearing, at which it denied Coinhub's petition for the return of the $20,000 and dismissed the action." The appeals court framed the dispute narrowly:

Glass is an earlier Wisconsin appellate decision. The opinion quotes it as holding that § 968.20 "establishes an in rem proceeding," meaning an action against the property itself rather than against a person.

The opinion also quotes Glass: "Section 968.20 appears to describe an in rem action in that it authorizes a circuit court to determine the ownership of seized property and order its return." According to the same passage, the statute "does not set forth grounds for personal jurisdiction over the parties and does not provide for a judgment against any defendant personally."

The statute thus concerns the seized cash, not a claim against the County. As the opinion puts it, "the circuit court here denied Coinhub's petition for the return of the $20,000 based on Glass." In Glass, by contrast, the circuit court awarded the claimant $1,606.80, the established fair market value of seized property the City had disposed of.

Wisconsin Watch describes Coinhub's challenge as unsuccessful. The opinion excerpts we reviewed do not include the appellate disposition paragraph, and we located no official release accompanying the decision. The full opinion linked above states the holding.

Act 226 provides refunds; totals remain unpublished

The Wood County victim recovered the money because a deputy pursued a warrant while the cash was still inside the machine, and the sheriff handed it back. The operator contested that outcome in court. Act 226 now gives a qualifying victim a refund owed by the operator, with no seizure required. Consumers who lost money at a kiosk can find next steps in our consumer protection resources.

No agency has published how many refund requests have been filed, approved or denied. With 238 listed machines left in the state, down from 506 in April, a low refund total could reflect market size as well as the law's effects.

Other states are moving on similar rules. Pennsylvania's HB 2643 is advancing, and comments on North Carolina's proposed kiosk rules close November 15, an opportunity for commenters to ask regulators to measure lawful access alongside fraud. New Hampshire's new statute, already law, set its daily cap at $2,000, double Wisconsin's.

DFI licenses Wisconsin's operators and could publish monthly complaint and refund counts to compare with our machine counts. Until it does, legislators considering Wisconsin's approach have officials' reports of fewer scam complaints and a 53% drop in listed kiosks, with two operators gone entirely. They do not have a count of the lawful buyers, many without a bank to fall back on, who lost their nearest way to turn cash into bitcoin.