Eliminating the out and out owners taking money out of the company. If they bought a lot of BTC during the 2021 runup ATH they might have wound up selling a lot of it at a massive loss.
As a person you can DCA a lot of things, as a business that is in so many states / locations they may have actually been selling $55k BTC for $30k or less. And at that point you really can't afford to buy more since you are now in a loosing situation.
Wait a minute, why would they have bought and held for long term any kind of cryptos in the first place?
They are just intermediaries between the exchange on which they buy and liquidate coins depending on the order received at the ATM, even assuming each of those would get more than 10k a day which is highly improbable they would still need to hold at any time more than 50 million in assets at any time, and they would keep adjusting those as the orders flow. They are just munching on fees, they don't have to stock up on anything, if they want to invest they could do that with a separate business but not throw operational funds at that.
This one might be indeed, maybe some secret headquarter in a penthouse in the Bahamas also?
Because some states DFS have very strict rules about what you have to have on hand "just in case"
Usually it's 2x average daily sales. So if you sell 1BTC a day you need to ALWAYS have at least 2BTC in your hot wallet.
It's not per machine, it's company wide so while they could keep buying on the open market as BTC fell they were always chasing losses.
And if someone said lets buy a bunch at $55k before it goes even higher they could have dropped millions there and then sold it back to people at 1/2 of what they paid.
Add in some odd rules that some states have, using Texas since I have it handy, does not let you count your crypto holdings as assets but you must have at least $500k in other assets
From https://www.dob.texas.gov/sites/default/files/files/consumer-information/sm1037.pdf:
licensing provisions of Finance Code Chapter 151 and of Title 7, Texas Administrative Code,
Chapter 33. In addition, several considerations should be highlighted. First, because a money
transmitter conducting virtual currency transactions conducts business through the Internet, the
minimum net worth requirement under Finance Code §151.307 is $500,000.6 Be advised that the
Commissioner may increase the required net worth up to a maximum of $1,000,000 based on the
factors set out in §151.307(b). Second, a license holder may not include virtual currency assets in
calculations for its permissible investments under Finance Code §151.309
And now you have money that you can't spend because it has to stay as an 'asset'
Insurance, people to get the cash from the machines, other people to put the cash into the machines, it staff, security, lawyers, accountants.
Have to go to the trade shows or you don't look legit. Can drop an easy $50k+ there between staffing, booth rental, hotels, flights, and so on. And a few hundred million USD is gone real quick.
It's actually why a small BATM operator left the market here. Was a small shop and the runup made him a lot of money, the 2022 drop left him operating at a loss so he just packed it in and sold his locations to another provider.
-Dave