About Pennsylvania Crypto

Why this site exists

There is a gap in Pennsylvania between what cryptocurrency costs and what it should cost. Someone walks past a machine in a gas station on Roosevelt Boulevard, feeds in two hundred dollars, and receives about a hundred and seventy dollars of bitcoin. Nothing illegal happened. The fee was disclosed and the exchange rate was on the screen. They simply paid fifteen percent for something available for well under one.

That gap is the largest and most fixable problem in this market, and almost nobody writes about it from a Pennsylvania perspective. National crypto sites do not know that Upper Darby's 69th Street district is the densest suburban kiosk cluster in the state, that Pennsylvania is one of the few states that does not allow capital loss carryforward, or that the Department of Banking and Securities reversed its entire position on virtual currency in April 2024.

We do, because that is all we cover.

What we publish

Sixteen statewide guides covering exchanges, bitcoin ATMs and their real fees, cash routes, selling and withdrawal, OTC execution, Pennsylvania law, Pennsylvania tax, wallets and custody, fraud prevention, mining, employment and education. Twenty-eight city guides and twenty county guides covering local kiosk coverage, banking, economics and the fraud scripts circulating in each area. Hubs covering twelve gift card products and nine cash voucher routes.

All of it is free, none of it is gated, and there is no newsletter you have to join to read a page.

How we research

We read the primary sources. The Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities publishes its policy statements and licensing records. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center publishes an annual report with state-level breakdowns. The General Assembly publishes bill text. FinCEN and NMLS both maintain free public registries. Operators publish fee schedules.

Where a machine's pricing is not published, it is checkable by anyone willing to insert a $5 note and read the quote before cancelling — which is how the fee ranges on this site were established.

Where we cite a figure, it comes from one of those sources. Where a number is a range drawn from several, we say so. Where something has changed, and in this field it changes often, we date it. Our editorial policy sets out the standards in full.

What we are not

We are not a broker, an exchange, a money transmitter, a bank, a custodian or a licensed investment adviser. We do not hold, transmit or custody customer funds. We do not sell cryptocurrency, and we cannot execute a transaction for you.

Nothing on this site is personalised financial, investment, legal or tax advice, and we are not licensed to provide it. Digital assets are volatile and largely uninsured, and you can lose the entire amount you put in. For advice on your own circumstances, consult a Pennsylvania-licensed professional. See our full disclaimer.

How we are funded

Some outbound links on this site are commercial partnerships. When a reader opens an account through one of them, we may receive a fee.

That arrangement never changes what we publish. If a licensed platform is expensive, we write that it is expensive — and we do, repeatedly, throughout this site. We publish the fee ranges kiosk operators charge whether or not anyone would prefer we did not. Our affiliate disclosure explains the arrangement in detail.

Corrections

This field moves quickly and we get things wrong. If you find an error — a fee that has changed, a machine that has moved, a regulation we have misread — tell us and we will fix it and note the change.

Email contact@pennsylvania-crypto.com. We read everything.