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2020s — May 2026
Where Fort Wayne actually meets crypto: For most residents the city's cryptocurrency infrastructure is not an app or an exchange; it is a kiosk in a store. Coinstar machines offering Bitcoin purchases through Coinme operate in Fort Wayne — one listed at 6002 Saint Joe Center Road — and machines of the same kind became, across the country, the payment rail of the impersonation scam: a caller posing as an officer, a bank, or a utility directs a frightened victim to withdraw cash and feed it into a bitcoin ATM, from which it cannot be recovered. Fort Wayne's police department put the counter-statement on its own scam-alerts page in terms that admit no exception: no government agency or business will accept gift cards and Bitcoin for any type of service or fee. In May 2026, warning of a phone scam in which callers posed as local law enforcement demanding payment for warrants and citations, the department repeated the rule for the record — law enforcement agencies do not request payment via phone, gift cards, cryptocurrency, or other unconventional methods. That is the documented end of Fort Wayne's crypto record to date: a bank that sells Bitcoin properly, two prosecutions in which it carried stolen money away, and a police department telling the city, in writing, that anyone asking to be paid in it is a criminal.
Sources:
- City of Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne Police Department scam-alerts page — the standing warning that no government agency or business accepts gift cards or Bitcoin for services or fees.
- WBCL and The Waynedale News (May 2026) — the FWPD police-impersonation scam warning, including the statement that law enforcement does not request payment via cryptocurrency.
- Coinstar/Coinme kiosk listing, 6002 Saint Joe Center Road, Fort Wayne — a bitcoin kiosk operating in the city.