Americans’ losses to crypto scams rose to over $11 billion last year, FBI reports

Finance Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Americans’ losses to crypto scams rose to over $11 billion last year, FBI reports Fraud schemes grew more sophisticated and targeted larger sums than in 2024. By Olivier Acuna | Edited by Sheldon Reback Apr 7, 2026, 3:06 p.m. Make preferred on FBI Headquarters Washington, D.C. (Wikimedia Commons/CoinDesk) What to know : Americans lost $11.4 billion to cryptocurrency scams in 2025, a 22% increase from the prior year, according to a new FBI report. The FBI says most crypto scams are run by organized criminal groups in Southeast Asia that use human trafficking victims as forced labor to operate long-term, psychologically manipulative investment schemes. Complaints involving cryptocurrency rose 21% to 181,565, with average losses of $62,604 and nearly 18,600 victims each losing more than $100,000 amid a broader surge in online fraud. Americans reported $11.4 billion in losses tied to cryptocurrency scams last year, 22% more than in 2024, highlighting the growing scale of digital asset fraud, an FBI report revealed Tuesday . “Cryptocurrency investment scams are sophisticated long-term scams using psychological manipulation, the appearance of legitimacy, and exploitation of cryptocurrencies to deceive victims into investing large sums of money," the report said. The report also said that most crypto scams are perpetrated by organized criminal enterprises based in Southeast Asia that exploit victims of human trafficking as forced labor to run the operations. Crypto analytics firm Chainalysis released a report in January revealing that as much as $17 billion in crypto was lost worldwide to scams and frauds in 2025. Impersonation, crypto exchange impostors and AI-generated scams against individuals were gradually surpassing losses to cyber-attacks as the leading methods criminals were using to steal digital assets, according to the Crypto Crime Report. The FBI noted in its report that the number of victims increased significantly. In 2025, there were 181,565 complaints involving cryptocurrency, a 21% increase. The average damage per case was $62,604, highlighting how victims are often drawn into schemes that extract substantial amounts rather than small sums, the bureau said. Losses are also heavily concentrated. Nearly 18,600 complainants each lost more than $100,000, suggesting many victims are losing life-changing amounts, including savings and retirement funds. More broadly, crypto scams now sit at the center of a wider surge in online fraud. Americans filed more than 1 million cybercrime complaints in 2025, with losses exceeding $20.8 billion. Fraud and scams accounted for the overwhelming majority of those losses, reflecting what the FBI describes as a rapidly evolving threat landscape. Crime More For You Encryption Supremacy: Zcash and Privacy in the Age of Scale By CoinDesk Research Mar 31, 2026 Commissioned by GenZcash Most crypto privacy models weaken as blockchain data grows. Encryption-based models like Zcash strengthen. CoinDesk Research maps the five privacy approaches and examines the widening gap. Why it matters : As blockchain adoption scales, the metadata available to machine learning models scales with it. Obfuscation-based privacy approaches are structurally degrading as a result. This report provides a comprehensive comparison of all five major crypto privacy architectures and a framework for evaluating which models remain durable as AI capabilities improve. 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