In 2015, a Bitcoin ATM turned up inside a Chicago restaurant called Cassava. It was the first machine CoinFlip ever installed, and at the time it was more curiosity than business plan - a way to let people trade cash for cryptocurrency in the same place they ordered lunch. The founders were not seasoned financiers. Daniel Polotsky and Ben Weiss had met as high school students in Deerfield, Illinois, and started the company as a side project from their college dorm rooms, alongside co-founders Kristoffer Dayrit and Alan Gurevich.
A decade later, that single kiosk has multiplied into more than 5,500 machines. CoinFlip now describes itself as the operator of the world's largest network of cryptocurrency ATMs by transaction volume, with kiosks spread across 48-plus U.S. states, Puerto Rico, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Italy and Spain. The pitch has stayed remarkably consistent: put a machine where regular people already are, let them feed in cash, and hand them Bitcoin without asking them to become experts first.
What it doesCash in, crypto out - and back again
At its core, CoinFlip is an on-ramp: the bridge between physical money and digital assets. Walk up to a kiosk, insert cash or tap a card, and you can buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, USDC and a range of other coins delivered to a wallet. Many machines run two-way, so you can also sell crypto back for cash. The company frames its mission plainly - make cryptocurrency accessible, safe and easy to use - and its whole product surface is built around removing the friction that keeps first-timers out.
That focus points CoinFlip at a specific customer the exchanges tend to overlook: people who deal in cash, who never opened a brokerage account, or who simply distrust handing their money to an app they have never heard of. For that person, a familiar machine at a nearby store is a more comfortable front door to crypto than any website.
The productsMore than a box on the wall
The kiosk is the front door, but CoinFlip has spent years building rooms behind it. The company has steadily pushed "beyond kiosks" into digital and higher-touch services, so a customer can start at a machine and graduate to a wallet, an OTC desk or an automated buying plan.
Bitcoin ATMs
The flagship network of 5,500+ kiosks for buying and selling crypto with cash, card or bank transfer.
CoinFlip Preferred
A personalized over-the-counter desk with white-glove support for larger transactions via wire, ACH and Interac.
Crypto Wallet
A self-custodial mobile wallet for iOS and Android to buy, sell, send, receive and store assets.
CoinFlip Ventures
An investment arm that funds and supports early-stage Web3 and crypto startups.
Olliv
A self-custodial consumer platform launched to make buying, selling and swapping simple for mainstream users.
Payroll Crypto
A program that lets employees buy crypto automatically through paycheck deductions.
The self-custody thread runs through most of it. Rather than hold customer assets itself, CoinFlip leans toward letting people control their own keys - a deliberate response to a market that has seen too many custodians collapse. Its Olliv launch even took public aim at "crypto bro" culture, positioning crypto as an everyday tool rather than a lifestyle.
The growthTwo million percent, no investors
The number that makes people look twice is the growth. Between 2015 and 2020, CoinFlip reports it expanded by nearly 2,000,000%, reaching an annual transaction run rate above $1.5 billion - and it did so without taking institutional funding during those years. In a sector defined by splashy raises and faster busts, a bootstrapped crypto company scaling to national reach on its own cash flow is genuinely unusual.
The recognition followed. CoinFlip landed at #60 on the 2021 Inc. 5000 - the top-ranked cryptocurrency company on the list - and returned to the Inc. 5000 for four consecutive years. It earned Deloitte Technology Fast 500 honors, was named Crain's fastest-growing company in Chicago in 2021 and 2022, and picked up Stevie Awards for customer service. Its co-founders made Crain's 40 Under 40. More recently, reporting has put the company's valuation near $5 billion through employee share sales.
The differenceSupport as a strategy
Ask what separates CoinFlip from the crowd of ATM operators and the answer is unglamorous: it staffs 24/7 live human customer support. For a machine that takes cash and dispenses volatile digital assets, having a person on the phone at 2 a.m. is a real differentiator - especially for the first-timers the company targets. Competitors race on machine count and fees; CoinFlip has treated service as the moat.
Rivals like Bitcoin Depot, Coinme, Coinsource and DigitalMint compete for the same street corners, while online exchanges such as Coinbase compete for the same beginners. CoinFlip's answer is to be both - a physical presence for cash users and a growing digital stack for everyone else - and to win on transaction volume rather than raw machine count.
The modelFees, footprint and repeat buyers
The business runs on transaction fees earned each time someone buys or sells through a kiosk, the OTC desk, the wallet or online. Revenue scales with the number of machines, where they sit and how much moves through them, with the higher-margin OTC and institutional services layered on top. Independent estimates place annual revenue around the tens of millions. The newest move - buying crypto through payroll deductions - is a bid for something the ATM business does not naturally produce on its own: recurring, automatic purchases from the same customers, month after month.
Most crypto companies sell the dream of getting rich. CoinFlip mostly sells access - cash in, crypto out, a human on the line if you get stuck. That framing is why it kept moving billions through a market cycle that flattened flashier names.
Where it fitsThe on-ramp, not the casino
Zoom out and CoinFlip sits at the entrance to the crypto economy rather than its trading floor. It is infrastructure for adoption - the layer that turns a $20 bill into a first fraction of Bitcoin, then hands the buyer a wallet, an education library and a support line for the next step. In late 2025 it partnered with CrypDonations to power crypto giving for nonprofits, extending that on-ramp logic to charitable donations. As crypto reaches for its next wave of mainstream users, the company is betting that a physical machine on the corner and a boring paycheck deduction will do more to onboard them than any bull-market headline.
From one machine in a Chicago restaurant to a network across nine countries, the throughline has been access over hype. The kiosk was never really the business. The on-ramp was - and CoinFlip owns one of the widest ones around.