New Hampshire will impose a $2,000 daily cap and a 48-hour waiting period on first-time cryptocurrency kiosk transactions starting December 16, a response to millions of dollars in fraud losses hitting communities across the state.
Gov. Kelly Ayotte and Attorney General John Formella announced the new regulations targeting the growing number of cryptocurrency ATMs scattered across New Hampshire, from its largest cities to its smallest towns. The rules require kiosk operators to hold a customer's first transaction for 48 hours, during which the buyer can cancel and receive a full refund. Daily transactions are capped at $2,000 per customer.
Ayotte described the regulations as a "first step" in protecting residents from scams that have already cost them dearly. The numbers back up the urgency: the Hampton Police Department alone has recorded more than $3 million in fraud tied to crypto ATMs, with $1 million of that stolen from community members over just the last 14 months.
Formella painted a picture of a problem that has outpaced any existing oversight. The Sun reported his warning that kiosks have multiplied rapidly with little state-level scrutiny.
"We've had an incredible increase in the number of these machines around the state, and we've identified hundreds of potential locations where these crypto ATMs can be put in, or are being put in."
The attorney general stressed that no corner of New Hampshire has been spared.
"We're seeing it in our cities, we're seeing it in our towns, our smallest communities."
That pattern, machines popping up in gas stations, convenience stores, and strip malls faster than any agency can track, is precisely the gap scammers exploit. A common scheme involves a caller posing as a government agent or tech-support worker and directing the victim to a nearby crypto kiosk to "secure" funds. Once the cryptocurrency leaves the machine, it is nearly impossible to recover.
Beyond the daily cap and the 48-hour first-transaction hold, the regulations layer on several additional safeguards. Kiosk operators must display visible scam warnings and present screening questions, including whether a third party is directing the customer to make the payment. If the answers indicate fraud, the machine must block the transaction immediately.
Operators must also provide both paper and electronic receipts for every transaction. A direct line for law enforcement is required, along with blockchain analytics tools designed to help trace illicit transactions after the fact.
Customers who discover they were defrauded have 14 days after a completed transaction to report the fraud and receive a full refund from the operator. That provision shifts real financial risk onto the companies running the kiosks, a move that could push less reputable operators out of the state entirely.
New Hampshire is not an early mover. More than 30 states have already imposed some level of regulation on cryptocurrency kiosks, and four states have banned the machines altogether. Hawaii is among the states whose regulatory approach New Hampshire is following.
The fact that New Hampshire waited this long is itself part of the problem. While legislators and regulators deliberated, residents, many of them older adults targeted by phone and online scams, fed cash into machines that converted it into cryptocurrency and sent it overseas in minutes. The Hampton Police Department's $3 million fraud tally likely represents only a fraction of statewide losses, given that it covers a single local department.
Several questions remain unanswered. The state has not publicly identified the specific statute or bill number behind the regulations, nor has it clarified which agency will enforce compliance or what penalties operators face for violating the rules. Whether the 48-hour hold applies only to a customer's very first transaction ever, or to the first transaction with each operator, also remains unclear.
Regulations without teeth are just suggestions. If New Hampshire wants to protect its residents from crypto kiosk fraud, it needs to enforce these rules as aggressively as scammers exploit the machines.