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An alarming new report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has revealed that Americans across all ages are losing billions of dollars to cryptocurrency scams. The FBI report goes on to say that these scams are becoming much more common as criminals recognize how effective they can be and the losses from crypto scams including bitcoin, ethereum, etc. account for over half of all losses.
The FBI released its 2023 Cryptocurrency Fraud Report earlier this week. The main takeaway is that Americans lost $5.6 BILLION from cyrptocurrency scams involving bitcoin/ether/etc in 2023. And that is just the ones who reported the losses. Sadly, it’s all too common for people to fall victim to cryptocurrency scams and not report it out of embarrassment so the true number is likely higher.
Throughout 2023, the FBI received over 69,000 complaints involving fraud related to cryptocurrency. That accounts for just 10% of all fraud complaints received by the FBI which doesn’t sound so bad until you realize that despite only accounting for 10% of fraud complaints the losses from cryptocurrency scams account for ~50% of total losses.
The FBI’s report also found that cryptocurrency scams were up 42% year over year, from 2022 to 2023, and there’s no reason to believe that number won’t continue to climb from 2023 to 2024 once the FBI has been able to compile all of 2024’s data.
The exact quote from the FBI in their official report reads “estimated losses with a nexus to cryptocurrency totaled more than $5.6 billion. While the number of cryptocurrency-related complaints represents only about 10 percent of the total number of financial fraud complaints, the losses associated with these complaints account for almost 50 percent of the total losses.”
Of the age groups losing money to cryptocurrency scams, the FBI report found 60+ accounted for the largest losses:
FBI
This graph shows just how quickly cryptocurrency scams in America have taken off:
FBI
For many Americans, this is a story that’s near and dear to their hearts (and savings). If you haven’t watched John Oliver’s segment on ‘Pig Butchering’ yet, I really encourage you to do so as it could potentially prevent you or a family member from losing all of their money because this scam is eerily believable in how it is presented to unwitting marks:
And that’s just one form of cryptocurrency scam that the FBI is currently monitoring!
The FBI’s report mentions that these scams target every age group. Anytime an unknown person presents you with an investment opportunity it should be an immediate red flag.