The penny has seen its final days of production, and fewer people than ever are walking around town with wads of cash tightly folded into the crease of their wallets. It’s not far-fetched to think that sometime soon, physical money as we know it will take its final bow.
Cryptocurrency — an almost two-decade-old form of money that exists only online — has its place in the pantheon of currency, but does it have the footing to become the prime choice for consumers?
Taking the form of online tokens or coins that people can buy and sell in open marketplaces, cryptocurrency is similar to more traditional stock market indices.
Crypto isn’t tied to the U.S. dollar. It’s stored using blockchain technology — a digital ledger — which tracks every transaction made in real time.
When Bitcoin was launched in 2009 as a decentralized alternative to the stock market, it cost mere cents to purchase. Now, if people wanted to purchase a single Bitcoin, they’d need to fork over close to $67,000.
Other coins include Ethereum, Tether, Solana, and Dogecoin, costing considerably less than Bitcoin.
“Crypto has undeniably moved into the mainstream,” said Daken Vanderburg, certified financial analyst, head of MassMutual Private Wealth and chief investment officer of MassMutual Wealth Management.
Vanderburg said that its explosion has propelled crypto investors to number into the hundreds of millions across the world, offering them various advantages as an investment position, including speed, global accessibility and diversification.
“Transactions settle quickly, markets operate around the clock, and investors gain exposure to entirely new ecosystems,” he added.
Crypto can be bought using centralized exchanges like Crypto.com, Binance, or Coinbase, through brokerages, and more recently, at ATMs designed to purchase crypto with cash.
The former — investing through established platforms — is a big component to being safe and successful, Vanderburg believes. The latter, unfortunately, has led to more trouble than many would have hoped for.
Crypto kiosks have popped up in convenience stores and gas stations as of late, and are the focal point for many scams across the country.
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reported 149,686 complaints of crypto scamming in 2024, according to their 2024 annual report, which was released last April. This equated to $9.3 billion in total lost money, $246.7 million of which stemmed from scams involving ATMs and kiosks.
In Springfield alone, police estimate that 29 people have fallen victim to cryptocurrency scams since January 2024, which generated losses of $624,000, most of which went unrecovered.
Springfield Police Detective Adam Provost thinks the problem is actually bigger, more than what filed complaints indicate.
“Let’s just say that’s what was reported,” said Provost, suggesting that many people might be too embarrassed or afraid to report a crime.
Provost is one of three Springfield detectives who have these crypto ATM scams atop their traditional case loads of larceny, breaking and entering, check scams, and other crimes. They’ve tracked stolen crypto currencies as far away as Turkey.
Detectives Chad Joseph and Christian Cicero work alongside Provost to investigate these scams throughout the city.
The scams have more to do with fear than they do a lack of investment knowledge, police said.
Victims of this form of crypto scam commonly receive phone calls or emails from people they don’t know, sometimes falsely claiming to be law enforcement or government officials, saying there’s a warrant for their arrest, or an unpaid traffic fine they need to take care of.
“They call up, they (instill) this sense of urgency to the victim, get them in fear that it has to be fixed now,” Joseph said. “Maybe they panic, maybe they don’t want to get in trouble themselves.”
Scammers often will remain on the phone for extended periods of time, officials say, walking their victims through a step-by-step process of transforming cash into digital currency. It starts with withdrawing a sum of money from their own bank, before visiting a nearby crypto kiosk to make a deposit.
Provost said some banks are beginning to implement failsafes, but generally there’s not much that can be done.
“If someone goes into my bank, and takes money out of my account, fraudulently, I’ll probably get that back because it can be proven,” Provost said. “If I walk in and take out that money, that’s on me.”
In the scams, the scammer directs the victim to a crypto kiosk, which then provides them with a QR code granting access to an online wallet and, once given to the scammer, the money is gone.
If police are unable to begin investigating within 24 to 48 hours — using a process called a “blockchain analysis” — the chances of tracking the money drops close to zero. It’s said that tracking the information is like trying to follow the lines in a cracked windshield.
“Scammers want you scared enough to act fast, and once they have your money in cryptocurrency, it’s nearly impossible to get it back,” said Hampden County Sheriff Nick Cocchi. “People deserve to understand not just the method, but how quickly these crooks can turn a moment of panic into a life-altering loss.”
When the scams were at their height, the detectives were receiving between six to eight complaints a day.
“It’s probably one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever seen in law enforcement,” said Sgt. Donald “Denny” Denault, who retired after 28 years of service at the end of January. “We took this job because we like to take charge of a scene and help the personnel or charge somebody that’s suspected of a crime, help a victim — but there’s only so much we can do.”
Denault said the department has been teaching its officers about the intricacies of crypto scams as they come across them, but it largely remains unbroken ground with many unknowns.
Despite being legal, cryptocurrency and its accompanying ATMs lack strict licensing or regulating, allowing victims to deposit thousands, sometimes tens or hundreds of thousands, of dollars into gas station kiosks at a time.
Because of the inherent danger, some gas stations have even taken it into their own hands to make visitors think twice, with posters hung on nearby walls. Others have gotten rid of them altogether, preferring a ring of dust where they once stood.
The Massachusetts State House currently has a number of bills, including S.804 and H.1247, being discussed in the Legislature’s 2025-2026 session to enact stricter guidelines over use of crypto. No laws have been enacted as of yet.
This lack of regulations has led law enforcement to struggle with jurisdictional disputes, as many victims travel across state borders to use city kiosks, some as far as Wisconsin, the Springfield detectives noted.
There’s also the question of who has authority online, to hold or seize transactions. While police have said companies like Bitcoin are cooperative, a lack of standard protocols can lead to piled-up paperwork and lost time during investigations, where timing means everything.
“The courts don’t really know who has jurisdiction because it’s in cyberspace,” Denault said. “They’re leery of signing a seizure, when they don’t know where the money is.”
Even if the money is tracked along its digital splintering into various electronic wallets across the world, there’s sometimes nothing the police can do to return it to the victim.
Joseph said that it’s one of the gray areas that the law hasn’t caught up with. “It’s not government regulated; it’s not government protected,” he said.
Despite its age and popularity, crypto still seems to have a long way to go until it’s as unanimously accepted as the dollar. For now, financial advisers and police both say the same thing — take it slow.
Cryptocurrency markets change by the day based on public sentiment, supply and demand, among other factors, and offer much more risk than the average investor might be comfortable with.
The benefits of these types of investments “coexist with the fact that major crypto assets have repeatedly fallen 70 to 90 percent in downturns, a level of volatility not typical in traditional markets,” Vanderburg said. “The risks are significant and require caution with a clear understanding of what you’re buying.”
At the time of this writing, the price of bitcoin continued its monthslong slide, falling another 11% to $67,000, and is now worth less than it was when President Donald Trump was elected into his second term of office.
After the election of Trump in November 2024, Bitcoin prices chugged higher for the better part of a year, in part due to investors’ expectations of a more crypto-friendly administration in Washington. But those gains have now been erased.
Vanderburg said that even the most knowledgeable, risk-tolerant investors only hold about a 2% position in their portfolio, with the understanding that it could vanish at any moment.
“Crypto may have a future in the financial system, but direct exposure is not for everyone,” Vanderburg said.
Meanwhile, Joseph noted that it’s common for scam victims who to walk into a Cumberland Farms with thousands in cash on hand.
“Who goes to a gas station to invest $50,000?” Joseph said.
Police advised would-be scam victims to second-guess themselves about what they’re being asked to do, and to use their common sense.
Local law enforcement urges residents not to answer unsolicited calls or emails, and to verify any suspicious activity with local law enforcement.
“The human sense is a powerful thing,” Denault said. “When the hair (stands up), when it doesn’t sound right, and you question it, just call the police. Call us.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.