Bitcoin (BTC) may have skyrocketed over $100,000 last year, but not all Bitcoin-centric companies benefited from price action.
Bitcoin Depot (BTM), a company specializing in selling Bitcoin ATMs, showed revenue losses from $150 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 to $137 million in the fourth quarter of 2024.
The decline in trading volume was largely due to regulatory changes in California, the company told Coindesk. Additionally, Bitcoin Depot’s cash flow has historically been unrelated to Bitcoin price action, claiming Brandon Mintz, the company’s president and CEO.
“Even when I saw that crash in 2022, the volume of trading was still growing,” he said.
Bitcoin Depot’s shares have fallen by about 85% since it began trading at NASDAQ after its merger with the Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) in 2023. The company’s market capitalization is $30 million.
The company has dismissed the idea that Spot Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds, launched in the US in January 2024, may have sucked up some of the company’s flows. “Historically, our business has not been directly linked to Bitcoin prices or investment vehicles like ETFs,” a spokesman in the email statement said. “We don’t see any evidence that ETFs have affected the amount of transactions.”
Bitcoin Depot tends to serve unbanked Americans, those who simply prefer to trade with cash, older people who are not used to using online payment options, and crypto people who have found themselves offering cash for Bitcoin. “What we’re focusing on is our niche customer segment,” Mintz said.
Bitcoin Depot buys ATM kiosks from another company, but offers Bitcoin software for the machine. The price of a new machine usually ranges from $5,000 to $7,000, and once installed, it takes about a year for the company to break even the cost of the machine.
ATMs sell Bitcoin only. “We were offering other cryptocurrencies, but when we published the SEC was suing many companies to sell other types of crypto that the SEC claims are potential securities, so we decided to go to Bitcoin only and avoid that risk,” Mintz said. “I believe it’s a wise choice because it attracts people who are not very sophisticated traders. This is a very beginner-oriented product.”
Bitcoin Depot has seen trading volumes of nearly $3 billion since its inception in 2016. The company has focused primarily on North America, but Mintz came to the idea of expanding internationally, citing market saturation.
