Ethereum Crypto Scammers Made The Double Of What They Made In 2017 Last Year, $36 Million USD

Scammers are going to scam and it looks like, at each year that passes, they will do it more and more. So, if you hold any Ethereum (ETH), you better save it really well if you do not want to risk your money.

A recent report made by Chainalysis has tried to understand how crypto scams happened in 2018 and mapped the numbers. The report affirms that $36 million USD, more than the double of what was stolen in 2017, has been nicked in 2018.

After a “humble” number of $17 million USD being stolen in 2017, crypto scammers have enjoyed the large popularity of cryptos to get even more people in illegal ways.

It is important to notice that the research only counts actual scammers, not hackers that steal the money by manipulating bugs in systems. Hackers are, in fact, making a way lot more than scammers, but this is not the focus of the study.

Scams may have declined in number but they got way more sophisticated now and also a lot more lucrative. The company that analyzed the data has found 2,000 scam addresses to which ETH has been sent and these accounts have received funds from at least 40,000 unique users, while only 10,000 people were victims in 2017.

It makes sense as cryptos started the year a lot more popular than in 2017 when they were barely known. Until the end of the year, the scams went down a bit, but they were large during most of the year.

The Chief Economist of Chainalysis, Philip Gradwell, has affirmed that most people were scammed by simple Ponzi schemes, the most popular type of scam of all time.

People asked for cryptos in order to deliver a guaranteed return for investors, but the money simply never appears in the reality because it is all a part of a scam.

According to the team, one of the most popular pyramid schemes got 333 ETH before the owners ran away. They promised daily returns of 3.33% and, despite the obvious reasons why it would not be the truth, it worked, a lot of people were attracted and had their money stolen.

One of the other most important scams was a fake Initial Coin Offering (ICO), in which people invested thinking that the product was legitimate and it wasn’t. The sites looked legitimate and encouraged people to buy, but delivered nothing in return. Soon, the ICO page disappeared, as it was a fraud.

Finally, there are also fake Android wallets. People using unknown wallets sometimes put their money on fake wallets and end up losing it instead of being able to safely secure their money. Google removes the apps as soon as they are found out, but a lot of people actually lost money.

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