Crypto currency Scams

 According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Consumer Sentinel, from October 2020 through March 31, 2021, reports of crypto-related scams skyrocketed to nearly 7,000 people reporting losses of more than $80 million. These figures reflect a 12-fold increase in the number of reports compared to the same period a year ago and a nearly 1,000% rise in reported losses.

Given the exponential rise in reported crypto scams, awareness of the common types of scams and what kinds of things you can do to protect yourself from being cheated are more important than ever.

Cryptocurrency scams have been growing exponentially in recent years, a by-product of the boom in cryptocurrencies. Cryptoasset risk manager Elliptic notes that decentralized finance users and investors have suffered losses of $10.5 billion as of November 2021 due to theft and fraud, up sevenfold from $1.5 billion in 2020

For many people, the mad rush into cryptocurrencies has evoked feelings of the Wild West. As the crypto ecosystem continues to gain scale and complexity, it will undoubtedly remain a top focus of scammers. As mentioned above, crypto scams generally fall into two main categories: socially engineered initiatives aimed at obtaining account or security information and having a target send cryptocurrency to a comprised digital wallet. By understanding the common ways that scammers try to steal your information (and ultimately your money), you will hopefully be able to spot a crypto-related scam early and prevent it from happening to you.