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Consumers Lost $1B in Crypto-Linked Fraud Since January 2021
Summary: New data from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Friday shows that consumers have lost over $1 billion in crypto-linked fraud since January 2021 through March 2022. Here is a tweet showing the data from the FTC. The number one scam which produced an astounding $575 million came in the form of bogus investment schemes ...
New data from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Friday shows that consumers have lost over $1 billion in crypto-linked fraud since January 2021 through March 2022.
Here is a tweet showing the data from the FTC.
The number one scam which produced an astounding $575 million came in the form of bogus investment schemes involving cryptocurrency, with romance scams and business/government impersonation rounding out the top three.
“Cryptocurrency is quickly becoming the payment of choice for many scammers," said the FTC, noting that about 25% of money scams now involve cryptocurrency.
The median amount lost due to crypto-linked scams was $2,600, with regulators citing that 46,000 people reported being defrauded. The top three cryptocurrencies scammers requested were Bitcoin (BTC), Tether (USDT) and Ethereum (ETH), coming in at 70%, 10% and 9% respectively.
According to the report those aged between 20 and 49 were three times more likely to report losing money in a fraud compared to older groups.
The report concluded with three red flags consumers should watch out for: anyone who claims they can guarantee big profits through investing in crypto, people who require you to buy or pay using cryptocurrency and a love interest requesting crypto so they can show you how to invest it.
This report has caused Twitter pundits to suspect that the crypto market is going to further go down before going up. Jared Tate, DigiByte Blockchain founder, is one of these pundits, saying that given the rampant fraud in crypto, his data is showing an 80% chance of a further 90% drop in the crypto market within the next 6 months.
He followed this tweet up saying that he hopes that he is wrong, but he is making preparations for a world where he is not wrong.
The FTC data report comes two days after Nate Chastain, the former head of product at a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace called OpenSea, was charged with wire fraud and money laundering in connection with trading confidential information about NFTs on OpenSea.
Jonathan Wu, growth at Aztec, a privacy layer development company, was one of the first to engage in the discussion on twitter and breaking the news on Chastain.
At the moment, Bitcoin is down below the $30,000 mark and has been staying relatively close to that number for the past three weeks, according to Bitpush Terminal data. It has currently lost 2.32% in the last 24 hours.
Ethereum is also down on the day, losing 3.74% in the past 24 hours. It currently sits slightly below $1,800.
Outside of Tether (USDT) and USDCoin (USDC), all other cryptocurrencies in the top 10 by market cap are in the red in the past 24 hours.
Author: Tyler Irvin
Tags: Crypto,Fraud
Link: Consumers Lost $1B in Crypto-Linked Fraud Since January 2021 [Copy]
