The cryptocurrency ATM tucked into the corner of a New Hampshire convenience store has quietly become one of the state’s most expensive consumer-protection problems. On Thursday, April 23, the New Hampshire House moved to do something about it — and in the process, broke with its own committee’s Republican majority. As the New Hampshire Bulletin reported, the House voted 214-140 to advance Senate Bill 482, the original Senate version that imposes a $2,000-per-day transaction limit and a two-week refund window on customers using crypto kiosks.
That vote came after the House rejected, 220-135, an amendment from Rep. Keith Ammon, a New Boston Republican, that would have softened the bill considerably. The Ammon version dropped the permanent daily limit, replaced it with a “new customer period” capping a customer’s first transaction at $3,000 with a three-day hold, blocked municipalities from imposing stricter rules of their own, and granted some legal immunity to kiosk operators.
The underlying bill, sponsored by Merrimack Republican Sen. Tim McGough, now heads to the House Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety for further review.
What A Crypto Kiosk Actually Does
A crypto kiosk — sometimes called a “Bitcoin ATM,” though the term is misleading — is a machine, usually installed in a gas station or convenience store, that lets a customer feed in cash and receive cryptocurrency in return. The currency is sent to a digital wallet whose address the customer scans or types in. The transaction takes minutes. It is largely irreversible. And it is the preferred final step in a particular family of scams that have hit New Hampshire residents hard.
The pattern is familiar to law enforcement: a victim is contacted by phone or email, told their identity has been stolen, told their bank account is at risk, and instructed to “protect” their money by withdrawing cash and feeding it into a nearby crypto kiosk to a wallet the scammer controls. By the time the victim realizes what has happened, the funds are gone — moved through the blockchain, often offshore, often unrecoverable.
Hampton Alone: $2.6 Million Lost
During Thursday’s floor debate, Hampton Republican Rep. Nicholas Bridle put a number on the problem in his hometown. According to Bridle, more than $2.6 million had been reported lost to crypto ATM scams by Hampton residents alone. He spoke against Ammon’s amendment, arguing it would shield kiosk operators from accountability. The amendment, Bridle said, “makes New Hampshire more attractive to scammers and criminals.”
Ammon disputed the framing and the figures. “I think the intent is to ban this industry,” he said during the debate. “In New Hampshire, do we ban industries, or do we make sure that only good actors are behaving in that industry?”
The 220-135 vote against the amendment suggests a working majority of the chamber agreed with Bridle’s read — that the consumer-protection guardrails in the original Senate version were the point of the bill, not an obstacle to it.
What The Senate Version Actually Requires
The version of SB 482 the House advanced does three substantive things. First, it sets an indefinite daily transaction cap of $2,000 per customer. Second, it requires kiosk operators to honor a two-week refund window — giving victims a chance to claw back funds before they disappear into the blockchain. Third, it leaves municipalities free to enact their own stricter local rules if they choose.
Those are aimed squarely at the scam pattern. The $2,000 cap interrupts the “withdraw your life savings” version of the con. The refund window gives banks, family members, and law enforcement a real window to catch a deception in progress. And the preserved municipal authority means towns hit hardest — Hampton being the obvious example — can layer additional protections on top.
For context on the broader 2026 legislative session, this fits the pattern we documented in our coverage of the Senate’s vote to kill new environmental fees and the bipartisan civil-rights compromise on SB 464 — a legislature willing to break committee party-line recommendations when the floor reads the politics differently.
What Happens Next
SB 482 now moves to the House Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety. That referral matters: it signals the chamber is treating crypto-kiosk fraud as a public-safety issue, not a commerce issue. The Commerce committee’s amendment was an industry-friendly product. Whatever the Criminal Justice committee produces will be shaped by a different question — how to make it harder for scammers to weaponize these machines against Granite State residents.
If the bill passes the House in something close to its current form and reconciles cleanly with the Senate version, New Hampshire would join a small but growing list of states placing real friction on crypto-kiosk transactions. For the residents of Hampton who collectively lost $2.6 million, that friction is the entire point.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a cryptocurrency kiosk?
A cryptocurrency kiosk is a physical machine, often located in a convenience store or gas station, that allows users to purchase cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin with cash. The cryptocurrency is sent to a digital wallet address the user provides. Because blockchain transactions are difficult to reverse, the kiosks have become a common final step in scams targeting unsuspecting residents.
What does Senate Bill 482 do?
As advanced by the New Hampshire House on April 23, 2026, SB 482 imposes a $2,000-per-day transaction limit on customers using cryptocurrency kiosks, requires a two-week refund period, and preserves the right of municipalities to enact their own stricter rules. The bill is now headed to the House Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety.
How much have NH residents lost to crypto kiosk scams?
During the April 23 floor debate, Rep. Nicholas Bridle of Hampton said his town’s residents alone had reported losses of more than $2.6 million to cryptocurrency ATM scams. Statewide totals are higher; law enforcement officers have described the scams as “rampant” in New Hampshire.
