Key Takeaways
- Missouri AG Catherine Hanaway sued Coinflip on Might 20, 2026, searching for as much as $1,826,000 in civil penalties below the MMPA.
- Coinflip’s 140-plus Missouri BTMs cost charges as much as 21.9%, with one 80-year-old veteran shedding as much as $200,000 in a single rip-off.
- The lawsuit seeks a court docket injunction halting Coinflip operations in Missouri till stronger fraud-prevention measures are in place.
Missouri Sues Coinflip for Hiding 21.9% Charges and Allegedly Enabling Crypto Scams Statewide
The suit was filed in the Circuit Courtroom of Jasper County, Missouri’s twenty ninth Judicial Circuit. It names Coinflip, which claims to function the world’s largest community of cryptocurrency ATMs by transaction quantity, with greater than 5,500 bitcoin automated teller machines (ATMs) throughout the United States and a number of other different international locations.
As of late 2025, the firm ran greater than 140 kiosks in Missouri, positioned in comfort shops, liquor shops, gasoline stations, and vape outlets. Hanaway’s workplace launched a statewide investigation in December 2025, issuing Civil Investigative Calls for to 5 crypto ATM operators, together with Coinflip, to look at anti-fraud insurance policies and charge disclosures. This lawsuit is the direct results of that investigation.
“Coinflip has develop into the getaway automotive for monetary predators focusing on Missouri residents,” Hanaway states in the submitting. “Whereas scammers take the bulk of the victims’ cash, Coinflip takes a big lower from each transaction and has hidden simply how massive that lower actually is.”
The grievance particulars three sufferer circumstances. An 80-year-old veteran misplaced between $180,000 and $200,000 between September 2025 and March 2026 to a scammer utilizing the title “Selina Lee,” who directed him to deposit money into Coinflip machines whereas posing as an funding advisor.
He bought his automobile, drained funding accounts, and almost misplaced his condo. A second sufferer deposited $1,000 at a vape store kiosk after a caller impersonating a Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy informed her she confronted arrest warrants for lacking jury obligation. Coinflip refunded solely $182.38 in charges. A 3rd sufferer deposited $900 at a machine labeled “FDIC Police Monitored” after the same pretend warrant rip-off. She reportedly recovered nothing, the submitting notes.
The lawsuit alleges Coinflip displayed solely a $2.99 flat community charge on its machines whereas burying a separate transaction charge of as much as 21.9% inside its phrases of service. Beneath that construction, a Missouri resident depositing $100 in money would obtain roughly $75.76 price of bitcoin. None of the three named victims recall any clear disclosure of the full charge quantity.
Federal Commerce Fee knowledge cited in the grievance reveals fraud losses at bitcoin ATMs elevated almost tenfold from 2020 to 2023. In the first half of 2024 alone, reported losses topped $65 million. The median reported loss per transaction is $10,000. Reported losses by adults over 60 have risen greater than twentyfold since 2020.
The grievance argues Coinflip had the instruments to establish and cease fraudulent transactions however selected to not use them. The corporate has entry to Elliptic blockchain analytics software program able to flagging suspicious pockets exercise, and every kiosk is provided with a remotely accessible video digital camera.
The go well with alleges Coinflip’s inner knowledge from 2021 confirmed 99.64% of transactions concerned purchases somewhat than gross sales, a sample in line with scam-driven one-way deposits somewhat than reliable crypto investing.
“Coinflip is aware of that its machines are routinely used to perpetrate devastating monetary fraud,” Hanaway claimed.
The Missouri AG added:
“The corporate income from each a type of transactions. That isn’t a enterprise mannequin Missouri will tolerate.”
Coinflip referred to as the lawsuit “meritless” and described it as a “misguided assault” on a licensed operator. The corporate stated it has advocated for stronger cryptocurrency kiosk rules in Missouri and at the federal degree, together with 2025 Missouri laws protecting licensure and shopper protections, and stated it plans to struggle the go well with. The regional information publication KMBC quoted Coinflip as saying:
“The Lawyer Normal is wrongfully focusing on the firm that championed the legislation that protects Missourians from legal scammers. Reasonably than waste taxpayer cash pursuing a licensed and controlled firm, the Lawyer Normal’s workplace ought to examine, catch and cease these criminals preying on Missourians throughout the monetary companies ecosystem. Coinflip will struggle this lawsuit aggressively, and we stay up for demonstrating that these allegations are baseless.”
Comparable actions have been introduced in different states. Iowa beforehand sued Coinflip and different bitcoin ATM operators on comparable grounds. The Missouri case matches a sample of state attorneys basic utilizing shopper safety statutes to focus on cryptocurrency kiosk corporations as fraud vectors.
The state seeks civil penalties of as much as $1,826,000, calculated at $1,000 per MMPA violation over 5 years, together with restitution for victims statewide and a court docket order suspending Coinflip’s Missouri operations till it implements efficient fraud-prevention measures.
