By Adam Swift
Last week, the city council supported a motion introduced by Council President Marc Silvestri seeking to ban cryptocurrency ATMs and kiosks in the city.
The motion asks that the mayor request the city’s policy writer and analyst to draft an ordinance banning cryptocurrency ATMs and kiosks from being operated in Revere.
The motion further asks that the city council send a letter to the Joint Committee on Financial Services in favor of H.1247, An Act Relative to Preventing Fraud and Establishing Regulations on Certain Virtual Currencies, regarding the cryptocurrency ATMs.
Silvestri noted that a recent television news program highlighted a growing issue with elderly people being victimized by scams involving cryptocurrency.
“This is not to say that there is not a legal, safe way to invest in cryptocurrency, but these ATMs are literally, 90 percent of their use in (Washington) DC has been reported in scams,” said Silvestri. “They are preying on elderly with get-rich quick schemes, and the thing is that there is no way to get after that. They are tracing where the money is going, they are tracing how it gets there; the store gets paid that has the ATM machines, the company gets paid that is doing the transaction, the thief gets the money that they conned out of the elderly person, and the person who just put their life savings into this machine gets nothing.”
Silvestri said he believes the city and the state need to look at ways to regulate the cryptocurrency machines.
Ward 5 Councillor Angela Guarino-Sawaya said that the elderly and immigrants are both very susceptible to scams involving cryptocurrency as well as other methods.
“This is a great motion, and thank you so much for putting it up for our seniors and our residents,” she said.