Crypto crime is sharply increasing as more people are trying their hand at trading and investing, but falling victim to scams and fraud promising high returns.
In the UK there have been 24,847 reports of crypto crimes since 2016, growing on average 124% every year.
New research from Crypto Head has analysed crime statistics of cryptocurrency related reports to discover how rapidly this problem is increasing across the UK, USA and Australia.
Crypto crime rates in the UK
Year
Cryptocurrency
Bitcoin
Ethereum
Total Reported Crimes
Year-on-year increase
2016
14
689
1
704
2017
43
1,407
32
1,482
111%
2018
228
6,440
71
6,739
355%
2019
265
6,825
31
7,121
6%
2020
552
8,131
118
8,801
24%
Total
1,102
23,492
253
24,847
Crypto crime has grown exponentially since 2016, which saw just 704 cases reported to Action Fraud compared to 8,801 in 2020. This is a 1,150% increase in just four years.
In total there have been 24,847 cases of crypto crime reported in the UK which grew especially quickly until 2018 where it peaked with a 355% increase in cases. It has begun to pick up again as 2020 saw 24% more reports than the previous year.
On average each year the number of cases reported grows by 124%.
Bitcoin has the most crime reports of any currency totalling 23,492 reports since 2016, however this can be expected as it is also the most dominant in the market.
The USA has more crimes than the UK and Australia with a total of 110,990 and 23,576 reported cases respectively.
The most common crimes
There are various ways people can be duped out of their investment and coins. The most common of those include:
Crypto Scam Initial Coin Offering (ICO)
Scammers will often lure investors with an ICO for a completely fabricated cryptocurrency, often taking information from legitimate coin sites to appear more convincing. As new currencies enter the market frequently, this can seem like an attractive investment to ‘get in quick’, only to find it was all fake.
This was seen in cases such as Bitconnect and Pincoin where $2.6 billion and $660 million was stolen from investors.
Crypto Pump and Dump Schemes
A small group of investors will pump money into a low value coin and convince private investors to follow suit so the initial group can sell their shares for a profit. The price then drops back down to its true value and leaves other investors out of pocket.
Crypto Theft
Although crypto wallets can be very protected, they are not completely secure. Hackers can get in to directly steal your funds and they can also set up phony crypto exchanges. The most secure wallet is an offline one with a unique password that you change regularly.
