Crypto markets across the globe are going through the continuous impact created by the notorious FTX collapse. This resulted in a projected gap of $2B in the holdings of the investors. However, an exclusive study discloses that the rug-pulls and scams have taken away almost double that amount during this year. The data privacy and cybersecurity experts from Privacy Affairs discussed this scenario in their latest round-up covering 2022’s cryptocurrency scams.
Privacy Affairs’ Survey Reveals Crypto Scammers Looted $3.5B from Investors in 2022
The specialists mentioned that Sam Bankman-Fried and his crypto exchange FTX caused the biggest loss that was gone through by online investors this year. Miklos Zoltan (the founder and CEO of Privacy Affairs) stated that this downfall would keep on putting a great impact on the unregulated markets of cryptocurrency for several months. As per the executive, this practice would escalate as the investors would attempt to withdraw their funds and escape the chaos that FTX brought out.
The survey disclosed that the 5 largest crypto losses, hacks, and scams of this year in terms of stolen or lost money cumulatively equal $3.5B. They take into account FTX (with $1 to $2B), the Ronin Network of Axie Infinity (including $615M), crypto bridge Wormhole (including $320M), the scam of JuicyFields.io (including $273M), and the scam of Unique-Exchange.co (including $267M).
The study indicated that nearly $1.9B worth of crypto assets were stolen by hackers from January to July 2022. During the same period in 2021, an upsurge of 37% was witnessed. In the words of Solidus Labs, malicious people in the industry initiate nearly fifteen crypto scams every hour. The platform disclosed that in the first quarter of this year approximately ninety-seven percent of the entire stolen crypto assets belonged to the DeFi protocols.
The CEO Advises Investors to Avoid Crypto Projects Assuring Significant Returns
FTC specified that the customers lost more than $1B in crypto scams from the start of 2021’s January through March of this year. While US citizens lost up to $329M in crypto frauds in 2022’s 1st quarter, Australians were deprived of $166M in crypto and investment-related scams during the whole year. Hong Kong-based investors lost $50M in such scams simultaneously. Zoltan suggested that people should stay alert by utilizing reputable crypto assets, abandoning the crypto schemes that assure great returns.
