ALBUQUERQUE BITCOIN KIOSK BAN TAKES EFFECT — CASHIER CASH SALES BANNED TOO — $500 A DAY FINES, MACHINES OUT BY DECEMBER 5

Albuquerque's ban on crypto kiosks took effect on October 21, 2026. Ordinance O-26-49 goes further than the machines. It also bans cashier-facilitated virtual currency sales, where a store clerk takes cash in person on behalf of a coin seller. Operators must stop now and haul the kiosks out by December 5, 2026. Stores and landlords may not host them. The city says breaking the rule can cost $500 a day and a business license.

The city's case is fraud, and the fraud is real. Scammers call older people, scare them, and walk them to a kiosk. Councilor Stephanie Telles has said 90 percent of kiosk transactions in the city are tied to fraud. The council's own release gives no source for that number. Mayor Tim Keller says the city is "taking that tool off the table."

Now read what the city says is still allowed. Residents may own bitcoin, mine it, and move it through internet exchanges and their own wallets. An internet exchange is funded from a bank account or a card. The kiosk and the counter took paper cash. So the ordinance does not ban bitcoin. It bans the walk-up door between cash and bitcoin, and leaves open the door that runs through a bank.

Cash is money you can hold without anyone's say-so. So is bitcoin. A city has now made it a $500-a-day offense for a shop to swap one for the other at the counter. The phone scam does not need a kiosk; it needs a frightened victim, and wires and gift cards are still legal. When the state closes a door to protect people, ask who still has a key. Here it is the banks. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $81,302.