Crypto scammers made more than $1 billion since the beginning of 2021

According to the FTC, about 46 000 people were affected by the activities of criminals during this period

05.06.2022 - 06:30

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What’s new? The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has published a report saying that crypto scammers have made a total of more than $1 billion since the beginning of 2021. About 46 000 people have been affected by the activities of criminals. The most popular currencies among crypto scammers became bitcoin, Tether, and Ethereum.

The FTC’s report

Details of the report. More than half of the scams began with some sort of post on social media platforms. The most common platforms became Instagram — 32%, and Facebook* — 26% (*the organization is recognized as extremist, and its activities are banned within the Russian Federation).

About $575 million were earned by scammers offering high returns to inexperienced investors. The second most popular method of fraud is extortion through dating sites, so the criminals have earned about $185 million.

The amount stolen for 2021 is almost 60 times higher than the same figure for 2018.

Earlier, the cybersecurity company CertiK reported that $1,67 billion was stolen from DeFi protocols in the first four months of 2022. The record amount was recorded in March — $719,2 million. The largest hack since the beginning of 2022 was the attack on the Ronin Network sidechain.

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