The study claims that cryptocurrency frauds were responsible for $3.94 billion, or 86% of all investment fraud losses in the United States.
That represents a 53% increase from 2022, when the industry was beset by several cryptocurrency scams, including as the $32 billion failure of FTX and the $4.7 billion bankruptcy of Celsius (the founders of both businesses were charged with fraud).
This increase in fraud pertaining to cryptocurrencies is consistent with a larger pattern of growing financial fraud on the internet. The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) revealed that losses from online fraud have exceeded a startling sum of $12.5 billion.
The study described how investment scams increased 38% to reach $4.57 billion, driven mostly by cryptocurrency schemes. It also showed that hackers are using digital currencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and meme coins like Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) more and more because of their anonymity and speed of transaction.
According to the FBI, schemes are getting easier to carry out. Scams can take many different forms, from complex impersonations and phishing schemes to business email attacks that resulted in losses of $2.9 billion.
The exact extent to which perpetrators of the 2023 crypto hoax went are what set it apart.
