Home Depot, Whole Foods and Starbucks are among retailers that now accept crypto at checkout, said Vivian Fang, Honeywell professor of accounting at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. Payment platform and credit service company PayPal late last year introduced a crypto checkout option, and most services that use PayPal now let shoppers pay for their items with crypto.

"That opens up the options to over 2 million online merchants in the U.S.," Fang said.

Immigrants also have been increasingly using it to send money to relatives in their home countries, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Right now, 159 Coin Cloud kiosks are in Minnesota, with 105 inside UNFI-owned groceries.

Earlier this year, La Crosse, Wis.-based gas station and convenient store operator Kwik Trip — which has over 800 locations in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa — announced a partnership with Bitcoin ATM operator Coinsource. Texas-based Coinsource's kiosks are in 2,500 locations in 46 states.