Athena Bitcoin Expands in Latin America, Makes Colombia a Top Crypto ATM Destintation

The crypto ATM company Athena Bitcoin is expanding in Latin America. The crypto ATM market has attracted several companies and Athena Bitcoin is doing a great job on the South American continent. In Colombia, the company has 17 ATMs in five different cities. In Argentina, Athena Bitcoin has 5 ATMs.

The city of Medellín, the second largest in Colombia, has recently installed the third Bitcoin ATM in the month. Although the last one is not yet operative, it will soon be available for people to start using it.

According to Athena Bitcoin, the largest users of Colombia’s ATMs are Venezuelans that moved to Colombia escaping from the crisis lived in their country. Other users of these ATMs are freelancers or people interested in the technology.

Athena’s Latin America director, Matias Goldenhörn said that there are more ATMs users in Colombia for everyday things. At the same time, he mentioned that the trend is growing also in the region.

About it, he said:

“There are a lot of freelancers in Colombia who receive their payments in Bitcoin and they use our ATMs to get their money in fiat and then there are people sending remittances to Venezuela are using them. Those are the two main users we have now in Colombia.”

These machines installed in Colombia offer Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) support. The ATMs are now working in Colombia’s five largest cities. The main intention is to open a new ATM in Cucuta, where there are several Venezuelans crossing to Colombia every single day.

Athena has other operative ATMs in Latin American countries such as Argentina, Mexico and Chile. The firm is also focusing in Argentina that received the first Athena Bitcoin ATM a few months ago. Now there are five locations in Buenos Aires where to buy Bitcoin and other digital assets. The idea is to expand to many other cities in the country.

In the United States, the company has more than 70 ATMs and the company allows users to purchase cryptos in just a few seconds. The company explained that in Latin America there are several individuals without banking services. Nevertheless, there is a high smartphone market penetration which makes virtual currencies a viable solution for these issues.

According to Coin ATM Radar, there are currently 4062 crypto ATMs around the world. Interestingly, 71.7% are located in North America, including Panama and Mexico. Latin America represents just 1.1% of the total amount of ATMs distributed around the world. The country with the largest number of these machines is Colombia with 27 and followed by Argentina with 5 ATMs.

The top three countries with the highest number of ATMs are the United States, Canada and Austria with 2421, 699 and 264 ATMs respectively.