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Police seize India's first bitcoin ATM

October 26, 2018

That didn't last long. Just a week after it was installed in the city of Bengaluru, India's first bitcoin ATM was seized by authorities, and its owner arrested.

Depending on which side one consults, bitcoin is either "illegal" in India (per the nation's finance minister) or just "not legal tender" in India (per Sathvik Viswanath, co-founder of Unocoin, the bitcoin exchange that installed the machine), a report from Sputnik News said.

However, the government unambiguously banned bitcoin in April and, in July, the Reserve Bank of India gave members of the country's previously booming crypto industry three months to make their case for virtual currency.

That deadline has since been extended, leaving the legality of bitcoin — and bitcoin ATMs — unclear. What does seem clear, however, is that India's first bitcoin machine is also, at least for the time being, its last.