Crypto scammers reportedly stole around $24 million in bitcoins in the first six months of 2020. According to the Whale Alert and Scam Alert report, some $38 million in bitcoin was stolen over the past four years, not including the Ponzi schemes, with $24 million in the first six months of the ongoing year alone. According to the Whale Alert analysis, some of the “most successful scams” made over $130,000 in a single day with “nothing more than a one-page website, a bitcoin address, and a decent amount of advertising on YouTube.
Deepfake tech could revolutionize the scam market.
Twitter Bot Whale Alert highlighted a few of the more successful operations, including “the Giveaway,” which features a celebrity, such as Elon Musk, which can net around $300,000. The change in method and the increase in quality and scale suggest that entire professional teams are now behind some of the most successful ones. It is just a matter of time before they start using deepfakes, a technique that will surely revolutionize the scam market, according to Whale Alert. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has forced most people to continue to work from home, and scammers are tailoring their pitch accordingly to lure in victims.
Crypto scams continue to rise amid the pandemic.
Earlier this year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a warning about how scammers might be looking to unleash a surge in crypto scams amid the ongoing global pandemic. Since the inception of bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency has come a long way as it continues to gain mainstream exposure. However, scams related to crypto have also increased over the last few years many times. There are several types of crypto scams, including fake giveaways, sextortions, fake exchanges, fake ICO’s, bitcoin recovery, video scams, Ponzi schemes, and the list goes on.
