Missouri AG sues Coinflip over 21.9% fees on 140 Bitcoin ATMs

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway filed suit on May 20, 2026, against GPD Holdings LLC, operator of the Coinflip bitcoin ATM network. The complaint, filed in Jasper County Circuit Court, alleges Coinflip concealed transaction fees as high as 21.9% on more than 140 machines in Missouri and knowingly allowed fraudulent transactions. The filing seeks civil penalties under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, restitution for victims and an injunction to suspend Coinflip’s Missouri operations until stronger fraud-prevention measures are in place.

The suit says Coinflip’s kiosks displayed a $2.99 flat network fee but buried a separate percentage-based transaction fee of up to 21.9% in the terms of service. The complaint gives an example in which a $100 cash deposit would yield about $75.76 in bitcoin after fees. Hanaway’s office opened a statewide investigation in December 2025 and issued Civil Investigative Demands to five crypto ATM operators; the lawsuit is the result of that probe.

The complaint details three individual victim cases. An 80-year-old veteran is alleged to have lost between $180,000 and $200,000 from September 2025 to March 2026 after a scammer using the name “Selina Lee” posed as an investment adviser and instructed him to deposit cash into Coinflip machines; the filing says he sold his vehicle, drained investment accounts and nearly lost his apartment. A second victim deposited $1,000 at a vape-shop kiosk after a caller impersonated a Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy; the complaint says Coinflip refunded only $182.38 in fees. A third person deposited $900 at a kiosk labeled “FDIC Police Monitored” following a similar fake-warrant scam and recovered nothing.

Hanaway’s filing asserts Coinflip had the technical ability to detect and block suspicious transactions but did not. The complaint says the company had access to blockchain analytics software, such as Elliptic, that can flag suspicious wallet activity, and that each kiosk includes a remotely accessible video camera. The suit cites internal Coinflip data from 2021 that shows 99.64% of transactions were purchases rather than sales, a one-way pattern the complaint describes as consistent with scam-driven deposits.

The complaint cites federal data that reported fraud losses at bitcoin ATMs rose nearly tenfold from 2020 to 2023 and that reported losses topped $65 million in the first half of 2024. It notes a median reported loss per transaction of $10,000 and says reported losses by adults over 60 increased more than twentyfold since 2020.

Hanaway wrote in the filing, “Coinflip has become the getaway car for financial predators targeting Missouri residents. Coinflip knows that its machines are routinely used to perpetrate devastating financial fraud. The company profits from every one of those transactions. That is not a business model Missouri will tolerate.”

GPD Holdings, which says it operates more than 5,500 bitcoin ATMs in the United States and internationally, called the lawsuit “meritless” and characterized it as a “misguided attack” on a licensed operator. The company said it supported Missouri legislation in 2025 that established licensing and consumer protections for kiosks and plans to contest the allegations. The filing notes Iowa previously brought similar legal action against Coinflip and other bitcoin ATM operators.

The lawsuit asks the court to require Coinflip to implement effective measures to detect and block scams at its kiosks, to refund victims and to suspend operations in Missouri until state regulators and the court are satisfied that appropriate protections are in place.