Americans Lost $1 Billion to Crypto Scams Last Year, Feds Say

Investing in Web3 is a way to lose a lot of money.

According to a Federal Trade Commission study, Americans have lost over $1 billion to scam artists in the last one year. Over 46,000 people say they have been ripped off, usually with the promise of a fake "investment opportunity" in some sort of Web3- related nonsense. According to the report, the median amount of cash that was pulled in each individual case was around $2,500.

The losses accrued during that period were 60 times higher than those reported in the year before. According to the report, one in four dollars stolen via fraud is taken using digital currency.

The FTC notes that people in their thirties are the most likely to fall for these types of scam. Older victims tend to lose more money per incident, with the average individualPayout for people in their 70's hovering around $11,708. The victims said they used to pay their scam artists with Cryptocurrencies.

According to the FTC report, there are features that are attractive to scam artists. There is no centralized authority to flag suspicious transactions and try to stop fraud. There is no way to get the money back once it is gone. Most people don't know how to use cript

A little over half of the money lost has gone to a type of investment scam called an investment scam, where a supposed web3entrepreneur reaches out to a target under the pretense of offering them a good deal on an alternative coin. The scam artist proceeds to run off with the target's money after bilking them. According to a majority of Americans who fell for the scam, it started with an advertisement on social media and then progressed into promises of "easy money." The only way to get easy money is to send it to the scam artist.

According to a report, another $185 million was lost last year to romance scam. An additional $133 million was lost to business and government impersonation scam, in which criminals pretended to be authority figures and then made up bizarre justifications for why a victim needed to invest in cryptocurrencies.

These are not the only ways to lose a lot of money. Hundreds of millions of dollars in losses can be caused by hacking episodes directed at your exchange. Digital currency can end up being a bad investment.