Crypto Scams Made 300% More Profits In 2018 Compared To Previous Year

One blockchain analytics firm named CipherTrace is in the cryptocurrency news for releasing its new report and showing that the amount of cryptocurrency scams and thefts was far greater in 2018 compared to the previous year, raking in $1.7 billion in profits which translates to a 300% increase from 2017.

The amount of crypto stolen or scammed over the course of 2018 is staggering and makes up over $950 million. As the report noted, the scams don’t even include individual user scams – but focus on exit scams, phony exchange hacks and ICO scams, while the user scams account for an additional $725 million.

Even though we saw bottom lows for many cryptocurrencies in 2018, the majority of coins stolen were done through hacking exchanges and other services. According to CipherTrace, the losses were much higher.

“These numbers only represent the loot from crypto crimes that CipherTrace can validate; we have little doubt that the true number of crypto asset losses is much larger,” the data company noted.

On top of this, most of the individual user scams have targeted inexperienced users who were charged – perhaps for the first time – with being their own bank. Inside jobs, on the other hand, dominated the crypto thefts in the last quarter of the year (Q4 of 2018) showing that cyber criminals have taken things up a notch and created a way to victimize noobs over “attacking hardened IT systems.”