>$1B in losses – The many ways people are falling victim to crypto-scams

ambcrypto.com:

It is no secret that cryptocurrencies have taken the world by storm. With a good section of the population invested in this world, crypto is on its way to becoming a mainstream payment method. However, along with global acceptance comes an alarming frequency of scams. According to a report by the Federal Trade Commission, over 46,000 people in the U.S have reported losing more than $1 billion in crypto to scams in 2021 – More than any other payment method.

It claimed that the top cryptocurrencies people said they used to pay the scammers were Bitcoin, Tether, and Ether. Bitcoin ranked the highest at 70%, Tether second at 10%, and Ether third at 9%.

Several features of cryptocurrencies attract scammers which helps us understand why the losses in 2021 were recorded to be nearly sixty times what was recorded in 2018. Also, since its decentralized, there is no bank or centralized authority screening suspicious transactions and flagging frauds. In fact, the report also found that since most people are unfamiliar with how crypto works, they become easy prey to such scams.

According to the same, social media and crypto are a deadly combination for fraud. A majority of the people who lost crypto to scams in 2021 said that they responded to an ad, post, or message on a social media platform. Out of the various social media platforms, Instagram was voted as the one with the highest frauds at 32%, Facebook came second at 26%, WhatsApp third at 9%, and Telegram came fourth at 7%.

Since 2021, $575 million of all crypto-frauds reported to the FTC have been bogus investment opportunities. The stories that were shared about the scams they fell for had a similar dynamic – The false promise of fast money with people’s limited crypto-knowledge