Key Takeaways
Missouri AG Catherine Hanaway sued Coinflip on Might 20, 2026, looking for as much as $1,826,000 in civil penalties beneath the MMPA.Coinflip’s 140-plus Missouri BTMs cost charges as much as 21.9%, with one 80-year-old veteran dropping as much as $200,000 in a single rip-off.The lawsuit seeks a courtroom 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 swimsuit was filed within 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 US and several other different nations.
As of late 2025, the corporate ran greater than 140 kiosks in Missouri, positioned in comfort shops, liquor shops, fuel 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 turn out to be the getaway automotive for monetary predators concentrating on Missouri residents,” Hanaway states within the submitting. “Whereas scammers take the majority of the victims’ cash, Coinflip takes a big reduce from each transaction and has hidden simply how giant that reduce actually is.”
The criticism 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 identify “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 practically misplaced his house. 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 responsibility. Coinflip refunded solely $182.38 in charges. A 3rd sufferer deposited $900 at a machine labeled “FDIC Police Monitored” after an identical faux 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. Not one of the three named victims recall any clear disclosure of the complete charge quantity.
Federal Commerce Fee information cited within the criticism reveals fraud losses at bitcoin ATMs elevated practically tenfold from 2020 to 2023. Within 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 criticism 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 swimsuit alleges Coinflip’s inner information from 2021 confirmed 99.64% of transactions concerned purchases relatively than gross sales, a sample per scam-driven one-way deposits relatively than legit 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’s not a enterprise mannequin Missouri will tolerate.”
Coinflip known as the lawsuit “meritless” and described it as a “misguided assault” on a licensed operator. The corporate mentioned it has advocated for stronger cryptocurrency kiosk rules in Missouri and on the federal degree, together with 2025 Missouri laws protecting licensure and shopper protections, and mentioned it plans to battle the swimsuit. The regional information publication KMBC quoted Coinflip as saying:
“The Legal professional Normal is wrongfully concentrating on the corporate that championed the legislation that protects Missourians from felony scammers. Slightly than waste taxpayer cash pursuing a licensed and controlled firm, the Legal professional Normal’s workplace ought to examine, catch and cease these criminals preying on Missourians throughout the monetary providers ecosystem. Coinflip will battle this lawsuit aggressively, and we look ahead to 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 suits a sample of state attorneys common utilizing shopper safety statutes to focus on cryptocurrency kiosk firms 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 courtroom order suspending Coinflip’s Missouri operations till it implements efficient fraud-prevention measures.