Chainalysis: the number of crypto scams fall by 65% since the beginning of 2022

A total of $1,6 billion has been stolen by scammers since January

17.08.2022 - 06:45

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What’s new? According to an August 16 report from Chainalysis, the total crypto scam revenue since January 2022 amounted to $1,6 billion, which is 65% less than last year’s figures. The report’s author Eric Jardine attributed the decline to the fact that there are significantly fewer investors, including inexperienced investors, in a bear market that could fall victim to fraudulent schemes. He notes that the largest scam for 2022 brought scammers $273 million, by comparison, the largest scam project in 2021 brought scammers $3,5 billion.

Source: Chainalysis.com

Chainalysis’ report

What else does the report say? Scammers’ revenue from hacking cryptocurrency projects increased by 58,3% by July 2022, to $1,9 billion. This figure does not take into account the $190 million Nomad cross-chain protocol hack, which occurred on August 1, or the massive $5 million hack of Solana blockchain wallets on August 3.

Jardine attributed these figures to the increase in the number of DeFi applications, the number of which increased in 2021.

“DeFi protocols are uniquely vulnerable to hacking, as their open source code can be studied ad nauseum by cybercriminals looking for exploits,” the analyst stated.

The report also says that the darknet market revenue in 2022 fell by 43%, mainly because German law enforcement agencies shut down Hydra marketplace’s servers on April 5.

Chainalysis previously reported that in 2022, 23% of funds sent to crypto mixers were linked to illegal addresses. In 2021, their share was only 12%. Most of the illegal assets are linked to Russia and the DPRK.

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