Bitcoin Depot - Earnings Call - Q1 2025
May 15, 2025
Executive Summary
- Strong beat and operating leverage: Revenue grew 19% YoY to $164.2M and Adjusted EBITDA rose 315% YoY to $20.3M; versus S&P Global consensus, BTM beat on revenue by ~8% and on EBITDA materially, while EPS of $0.20 exceeded the $0.09 consensus estimate. Revenue consensus $151.7M*, EBITDA consensus $12.5M*, EPS consensus $0.0925*.
- Margin inflection: Adjusted gross margin expanded ~770 bps YoY to 20.2% and Adjusted EBITDA margin to 12.4% on pricing strength, higher throughput, and fixed-cost leverage.
- Cash generation and balance sheet: Cash from operations was $16.3M; cash, cash equivalents and cryptocurrencies rose to $43.3M. Management opportunistically added 83 BTC (to 94.35 BTC) and reiterated priority to pay down term debt and consider dividends with limited 2025 capex needs.
- Outlook: Q2 2025 revenue expected to grow low-to-mid single digits YoY against tough comps and tax-refund seasonality shift; narrative remains focused on kiosk optimization, pricing, and international expansion (Australia).
Values retrieved from S&P Global for consensus estimates.
What Went Well and What Went Wrong
What Went Well
- Operating leverage and margin expansion: “Remarkable first quarter” with Adjusted EBITDA >3x to $20.3M and Adjusted gross margin +770 bps to 20.2% on pricing strength and leverage.
- Cash generation and capital flexibility: Cash from operations $16.3M; cash+crypto $43.3M; management purchased 83 BTC (total 94.35 BTC) and signaled debt paydown and potential dividends amid minimal capex needs in 2025.
- Fleet optimization and throughput: Revenue +19% YoY to $164.2M on kiosk deployments and a 46% YoY increase in median ticket to $300; active machines reached ~8,483 with payback periods <8 months, underscoring attractive unit economics.
What Went Wrong
- Ongoing regulatory drag: California changes still depress relative performance; BTM reduced its California kiosk count by ~80% and remains exposed to evolving state-level rules.
- Q2 deceleration vs Q1: Management guided to low-to-mid single-digit YoY growth in Q2 due to tough comps and a shift of tax-refund-driven volume toward Q1 (seasonality).
- Non-controlling interest and non-GAAP dependency: EPS to common is lower than total net income due to NCI ($0.20/share to common), and comparisons rely on non-GAAP (Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted GP), necessitating careful definition alignment with external estimates.
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Thank you for standing by. My name is Janice, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Bitcoin Depot first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask your question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, press star one again. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Cody Slach, Senior Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Cody Slach (Senior Managing Director)
Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone. Before management begins their formal remarks, we'd like to remind everyone that some statements we're making today may be considered forward-looking statements under securities laws and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. As a result, we caution you that there are a few factors, many of which are beyond our control, which could cause actual results and events to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. For more detailed risks, uncertainties, and assumptions relating to our forward-looking statements, please see the disclosures in our earnings release and public filings with the SEC. We disclaim any obligation or undertaking to update forward-looking statements to reflect circumstances or events that occur after the date the forward-looking statements are made, except as required by law.
We will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures and encourage you to read our disclosures and the reconciliations to applicable GAAP measures in our earnings release carefully as you consider these metrics. We refer you to our filings with the SEC for detailed disclosures and descriptions of our business, as well as uncertainties and other variable circumstances, including but not limited to risks and uncertainties identified under the captioned risk factors in our recent filings. You may get Bitcoin Depot's SEC filings for free by visiting the SEC website at sec.gov. I'd like to remind everyone this call is being recorded and will be available for replay via a link in the investor relations section of Bitcoin Depot's website. A supplemental earnings presentation highlighting our performance has also been made available on our IR website. Now I will turn the call over to Bitcoin Depot's CEO, Brandon Mintz. Brandon?
Brandon Mintz (CEO and Chairman of the Board)
Thanks, Cody, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for attending our first quarter conference call. Bitcoin Depot delivered a remarkable first quarter with 19% year-over-year revenue growth and record net income of $12.2 million. Consumer demand was quite strong, with median transaction size up 46% year-over-year to $300 and total transaction volume moving steadily higher to $163.8 million. These results produced strong free cash flow, which we used to build cash and purchase more Bitcoin. This performance demonstrates the strength of our operating model, the success of our kiosk optimization strategy, and the powerful cash flow we can generate once fixed costs are covered. Let me provide more details on this performance. Our kiosk growth and optimization plan are showing the intended results. Q1 adjusted gross profit was up 92% year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA was up over three-fold to a record $20.3 million.
These results should continue as this strategy unfolds. We ended Q1 with approximately 8,483 active machines and expect to see continued growth in kiosks for the remainder of the year. Now onto our BTM relocation strategy. Today, 3,200 of our kiosks have been installed for less than one year. As these machines ramp up, we expect to drive further cash flow as our Bitcoin ATMs typically see payback periods of less than eight months, regardless of Bitcoin price. As the largest BTM operator in North America, our scale, compliance-first approach, and long-standing retail partnerships continue to set us apart in a highly fragmented market. We remain focused on expanding market share and growing profitability. Now turning to an update on our growth strategy. First, international expansion. We have now deployed over 100 kiosks to support our ongoing launch in Australia this year.
Australia is quickly emerging as a global hotspot for Bitcoin adoption, currently ranking third worldwide in total Bitcoin ATMs. We believe this represents a significant opportunity to establish a strong presence outside North America. While it's still early, we are encouraged by the retail partnerships and expansion opportunities we have identified so far. Beyond Australia, we are actively evaluating entry into at least two additional countries in 2025. Second, scaling our domestic footprint. We continue to deploy kiosks from the large inventory we secured last year. Once fully deployed, these units could bring our total active fleet to approximately 10,000 kiosks. This will enhance our reach and support further efficiencies across the business. Third, regulatory expansion into new markets. New York State remains one of the largest untapped markets for Bitcoin ATMs.
We are in ongoing discussions with regulators and remain optimistic about obtaining a license to operate in the state in 2025. While there is no definitive timeline yet, we are encouraged by the progress and engagement so far. On a broader note, we continue to closely monitor the evolving regulatory environment at both the federal and state levels. Our strong compliance infrastructure, including rigorous KYC and AML protocols, continues to serve as a competitive advantage. We are actively engaging with regulators, including Fenton and various state agencies, to help shape a responsible future for the industry. More broadly, the recent establishment of a U.S. strategic Bitcoin reserve highlights the growing institutional recognition of Bitcoin's role in the financial system. As a national leader in Bitcoin ATM deployment, we are prepared to support the shift by expanding access to digital assets for everyday consumers.
We have also strengthened our leadership team with the appointment of David Gray as our Chief Financial Officer and Chris Ryan as our Chief Legal Officer. David brings more than 20 years of financial leadership experience. Chris brings deep expertise in legal and regulatory matters within fintech. Their combined experience will be essential as we continue to grow. With that, I will turn it over to our CFO, David Gray, who will walk through our financial results in more detail. David.
David Gray (CFO)
Thanks, Brandon, and good morning, everyone. It's great to be here, and I look forward to meeting many of our shareholders over the coming months. Jumping right into our first quarter performance, revenue was $164.2 million compared to $138.5 million for last year's first quarter, an increase of 19% driven by growth in deployed kiosks and higher median transaction size. Sequentially, revenue was up 20% as compared to Q4 2024 as a result of strong consumer demand underpinned by growing median transaction size, along with our continued process of relocating underperforming kiosks to optimize fleet profitability. Adjusted gross margin in the first quarter of 2025 increased 92% to $33.1 million compared to $17.3 million in the first quarter of 2024. Adjusted gross margin in the first quarter of 2025 increased 770 basis points to 20.2% compared to 12.5% in the first quarter of 2024.
This margin increase was largely driven by leverage on the significant revenue outperformance and the continued pricing strength. Total operating expenses declined 7% to $15.3 million compared to $16.6 million in last year's first quarter. The improvement was attributable to lower depreciation expense and our company moving farther away from the de-SPAC transaction to optimize expenses for life as a public company. Specifically, we have saved multiple million dollars on an annual basis by reducing costs related to our third-party legal costs, audit services, and insurance. GAAP net income for the first quarter of 2025 increased significantly to $12.2 million compared to a net loss of $4.2 million for the first quarter of 2024. GAAP net income attributable to common shareholders increased to $4.2 million, or $0.20 per share, compared to a net loss of $1.5 million in last year's first quarter.
The significant increase was due to higher revenue and gross profit and, to a lesser extent, lower expenses. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure, increased 315% to $20.3 million in the first quarter of 2025 compared to $4.9 million in the first quarter of 2024. This increase was primarily due to revenue outperformance and margin expansion. Now turning to our balance sheet and cash flow. Cash and cash equivalents and cryptocurrencies as of March 31st, 2025, increased to $43.3 million compared to $31.0 million at the end of 2024. The company acquired 83 more Bitcoin in the quarter, bringing our investment holdings up to 94.4 BTC, valued at approximately $7.8 million as of March 31st. We generated a record $16.3 million of cash from operating activities in the first quarter, up significantly from $1.3 million in the year-ago quarter.
Debt at quarter end was $60 million compared to $60.9 million at the end of 2024. This balance includes term loans, finance leases, and profit share arrangements. Of the total debt balance, $30 million is our term loan on which we paid down $6 million during the quarter, and we plan to pay down at least an additional $3.5 million by year-end. The paydown of the term loan balance was largely offset by the expansion of our profit share franchise agreements in the quarter. These agreements entail an upfront lump sum payment to the company by our partners in exchange for a portion of the future profits generated from a specified group of kiosks for a specified period of time. Because we continue to operate and typically retain title to the kiosks, we must account for the upfront payments as debt under U.S. GAAP.
As we think about our capital allocation strategy going forward, we will focus our attention on other ways of driving shareholder value, including paying down our term loan or potential dividends as we do not expect significant CapEx in 2025. Now turning to our outlook. Given the improved visibility we have in our business that Brandon mentioned, we are continuing with near-term financial guidance. We anticipate Q2 revenues to grow in the low to mid-single digits, both sequentially and as compared to Q2 of 2024. This growth, while modest, is against very strong comps of $164 million and $163 million for Q1 of 2025 and Q2 of 2024, respectively. We remain committed to additional operational enhancements to drive profitable growth going forward, including improved vendor pricing, lowering professional service costs, and optimizing customer markups. We are focused on optimizing the business for profitability and positive cash flow ahead.
With that, we are happy now to take your questions. Operator?
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press harder than the number one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Mike Grondahl of Northland Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Mike Grondahl (Head of Equity Research and Senior Research Analyst)
Hey, guys. Congrats on a solid quarter. A couple of questions. One, do you have a year-end 2025, year-end 2026 rough kiosk goal? And then what would you think of, I don't know, rough CapEx for 2025 and 2026?
Brandon Mintz (CEO and Chairman of the Board)
Hey, Mike. It's Brandon. No, we haven't announced to the public a kiosk goal in terms of our total installed fleet. You can see we're moving a little bit slower in terms of additional net new installations than last year, but our goal is still to get the remainder installed as soon as possible. We mentioned in the earnings script that we're expanding, hopefully, into an additional country or two this year, and we definitely want to reserve some of the kiosks that we use for that international expansion effort. One thing to note is we have about 150 kiosks installed in Australia today, but we shipped about 350 there. There will be some installation expansion just as Australia ramps up, not even including the U.S.
In terms of CapEx for 2025 and 2026, with close to 2,000 kiosks still available for us to deploy, there is not a need to purchase additional kiosks this year at least. Obviously, things could change very quickly. If all of a sudden we signed a large retail chain, then maybe we do not have enough kiosks. For now, I could not really say that you should anticipate CapEx this year beyond just small things like parts costs and such, but nothing significant.
Mike Grondahl (Head of Equity Research and Senior Research Analyst)
Got it. Got it. That's kind of what I thought, but I wanted to make sure for 2025. You have roughly 3,200 kiosks that have been in place less than a year. If those 3,200 ramp to be average kiosks, what incremental lift to revenue would that be?
Brandon Mintz (CEO and Chairman of the Board)
Let me think about that for a second. Yeah, I don't have the ability to calculate an exact number right now, but what I can say is we're always going to have probably 1,000 kiosks minimum within that one-year installed bucket just from deploying new kiosks and relocating existing kiosks. The kiosks in year two versus year one typically see at least 50% growth in terms of revenue versus year one, if you just look at year over year. We can evaluate that a little bit further and get back to you.
Mike Grondahl (Head of Equity Research and Senior Research Analyst)
Cool. I mean, clearly, those are still ramping, and they're not mature yet. Just trying to kind of understand how much is there. Thank you.
Brandon Mintz (CEO and Chairman of the Board)
Yep.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Mike Colonnese of H.C. Wainwright. Please go ahead.
Mike Colonnese (Managing Director)
Hey, good morning, guys, and congrats on a really strong quarter here. First one for me, obviously, Bitcoin Depot is generating really strong cash flows. It'd be great to get some more color around your capital management priorities for the rest of the year. I can appreciate some of the debt repayment comments. How are you thinking about balancing maybe M&A, Bitcoin purchases, and again, this potential for dividend?
Brandon Mintz (CEO and Chairman of the Board)
Good question, Mike. It's Brandon again. When we look at uses of cash with the Bitcoin purchases, we would like to be opportunistic. With us getting back close to all-time highs right now, I don't anticipate much buying. In terms of paying down debt, we did sign an amendment to our term loan agreement that requires us to have a little bit quicker amortization schedule. With our strong balance sheet right now, the preferred dividend being paid off and without a drag on potential cash uses like the preferred dividend had, I could see us potentially paying down debt maybe even quicker than what's in the schedule. In terms of M&A, there's still not a lot of opportunities that make sense for us, at least in the U.S.
or Canada or Australia, primarily because we've just been able to purchase kiosks at prices that are less expensive than brand new kiosks. When we run the numbers, it's hard to justify those M&A opportunities when we can just grow organically ourselves and have higher returns there. However, we're evaluating M&A opportunities internationally because if someone can speed up our timeline to deployment, whether they have a license or some strategic vendor relationships or a strategic retailer relationship, that has really additional value than just us buying more kiosks and finding locations. We're evaluating if there's an opportunity that makes sense. I don't think at this time we're in a place where that's a very near-term situation.
Mike Colonnese (Managing Director)
Very helpful, Brandon. Appreciate the color there. Regarding the Q2 revenue guide, I can appreciate the tough comp from the year-ago quarter. Are there any other factors causing such a significant deceleration in revenue growth for this quarter here?
Brandon Mintz (CEO and Chairman of the Board)
I think just as time has gone on, we've noticed the seasonality in the business we've talked about previously and how this business seems to be somewhat correlated with the seasonality with tax return season. I think as there are more and more tools for people to get refunds earlier, that some of that volume is starting to shift more into Q1.
Mike Colonnese (Managing Director)
Great. Thank you for taking my questions.
Brandon Mintz (CEO and Chairman of the Board)
That's just a theory.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Hal Goetsch of B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.
Hal Goetsch (Managing Director)
Hey, there. Hey, congrats on a great quarter. Just wanted to get your thoughts on the reason for maybe the extremely steep increase over the last four quarters in median transactions. It was rock solid around 200, and then for the last four quarters, it's really moved up. I wanted to get your thoughts. Because it's up about 50%. What are your thoughts on that?
Brandon Mintz (CEO and Chairman of the Board)
I didn't hear the second question, but.
Scott Buchanan (President, Director, and Principal Financial Officer)
I got it.
Brandon Mintz (CEO and Chairman of the Board)
Okay.
Scott Buchanan (President, Director, and Principal Financial Officer)
Hey, Hal. This is Scott. It's just a function of where the transaction tiers are for KYC. We've had a tier at $200 for a long time, and that means customers will frequently do $200 transactions. When you look at the median, even if the average has been going up every month, every quarter, every year, when you take the median, $200 just has a lot of transactions that are at exactly that level. Even if we're moving up to higher points within that $200 median, it was still $200. Once we cross that level, we're seeing it move up at what appears a more quick pace because it hasn't hit another tier where there's just a ton of common transactions at that specific size, if that makes sense. It's a function of where we see a lot of exact-sized transactions.
Hal Goetsch (Managing Director)
Okay. Okay. Could you comment on just overall transaction count growth by kind of cohort? I mean, what are some of the machines that are in place over two years that haven't been moved in a year? What kind of transaction counts are they doing per month? What are some of the KPIs you could share with us, even if it's more qualitative basis?
Scott Buchanan (President, Director, and Principal Financial Officer)
Yeah. Let's see. I'll try to do some quick math for you. So I mean, a kiosk that's ramped up, I mean, we still see a lot of variability even after the two years with what transaction sizes mixed with transaction counts. But we're seeing transaction counts at mature kiosks in the mid-double-digit range, so in the, let's say, 10-20 transactions a month at a mature kiosk.
Hal Goetsch (Managing Director)
Okay. Are those mature kiosks, are they trending toward the median transaction size? Is that kind of—does that fair then? Because they've been there a while. People know that they're there. They're frequent users.
Scott Buchanan (President, Director, and Principal Financial Officer)
It would trend more toward the average transaction size, which is higher than the median. Yeah, it would be around that.
David Gray (CFO)
The average is higher than the median.
Scott Buchanan (President, Director, and Principal Financial Officer)
For sure, yeah. Because outlier large transactions pull off the average more than they can pull up the median.
Hal Goetsch (Managing Director)
Okay. Last, before we get back into queue, you have left California's impact of their change. What have you seen in California a year later? What is—how has that either bounced back or not bounced back, or what has happened in California?
Scott Buchanan (President, Director, and Principal Financial Officer)
Can you ask that again? You're asking if California has bounced back?
Hal Goetsch (Managing Director)
No. California made a rule change that impacted all of 2024, right? You have now lapped it. Could you please share some commentary on what California looks like a full, almost five quarters after that change? How are trends in California?
Scott Buchanan (President, Director, and Principal Financial Officer)
Yeah. I mean, California is still lower than other states because of the rule changes that happened there. It just has less of an impact on the business now that we've got many, many fewer kiosks in the state. We've probably reduced our count of kiosks in California by about 80% from where we were when the rule first went into effect.
Hal Goetsch (Managing Director)
Okay. Okay. So that used to be one of your top states. You've removed 80% of your kiosks, and you're growing double-digit right now, Q1. I mean, that's helpful. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Pat McKeown with Noble Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Pat McKeown (Managing Director)
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions, and congrats on the quarter. I would like, if you don't mind, talking a little bit more about the spreads of the machines this quarter and the gross margins and the drivers behind that and what maybe we should expect moving forward there.
David Gray (CFO)
Yeah. I'll take that one, it's David. Yeah. The gross margin expansion really was attributable to pricing strength. We did increase our margins on Bitcoin transactions through the kiosks as well as leveraging higher revenue across kind of the fixed and semi-fixed costs that we have in our cost structure. Those were two key drivers of the margin expansion, and we expect that to continue to be strong going forward.
Pat McKeown (Managing Director)
The other question was regarding additional kiosk acquisition. I know that's not a need right now, but I was just wondering what the landscape looks like as far as opportunities to pick up more kiosks on the cheap, kind of like you did recently in the last year or so.
Brandon Mintz (CEO and Chairman of the Board)
Brandon, I'll take that one. If you look at data from coinatmradar.com, which has the listings of all of the Bitcoin ATMs around the world for the most part, it looks like competition, at least in the U.S., is shrinking. If you remove our kiosk growth over the past year and just looking at their data, it looks like maybe there's over 3,000 competitor kiosks that have disappeared from the market. I think as some of the smaller operators struggle to survive in this environment that requires more sophistication and more resources from operators, there could be additional kiosks that pop up on the market for sale.
Pat McKeown (Managing Director)
Thanks. That's all I had. Congrats again.
Brandon Mintz (CEO and Chairman of the Board)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
I'll now turn the call back over to Brandon Mintz, CEO, for closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Brandon Mintz (CEO and Chairman of the Board)
Thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. We're very happy about the results we delivered, and we plan to continue to perform next quarter.
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.