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Key facts:
In the last four years, there have been reported thefts and frauds in bitcoin for USD 34 million.
Only in the fraud called “Giveaway”, robberies were approaching USD 10 million.
A study of Whale Alert estimated that the thefts total for this year will reach USD 50 million. In the last four years, there have been reported thefts and frauds in bitcoin for USD 34 million. Only in the fraud called “Giveaway”, robberies were approaching USD 10 million.
The daily average thefts in bitcoin, due to the various types of online fraud, existing, exceeds USD 130.000, according to a study conducted by the division of Whale Alert, Scam Alert. The total stolen in the first half of this year exceeds $ 24 million, of acuero to the study.
The report, entitled Chasing the crooks, collected data from hundreds of web sites and the inspection of tens of thousands of addresses to bitcoin, as well as numerous reports from various sources. The results, concludes Whale Alert, which can be summed up in three words: “The criptocrimen pay”.
The growth per year of theft and fraud in bitcoin between 2017 and 2019 was remarkable, according to the figures of the report. In those 3 years, from USD 2.5 million in 2017, 2019, ended with a total of USD 6.6 million of theft and fraud in bitcoin. The year on year growth compound in these three years was approximately 40%.
Fraud and theft only with bitcoin will grow more than 800% this year. Source: Whale Alert.
But of 2019 to 2020 will register a growth much greater, since only in the first half of this year, the total of theft in bitcoin is beyond the three times the total for the year 2019, equal to a 263% increase.
With estimates of Whale Alert, a total of USD 50 million thefts in bitcoin for this year, growth in 2020 would be higher than 800%, compared to 2019.
“Giveaway” is the fraud more lucrative
Among the precautions recommended against theft and fraud associated with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the more useful it could be, “If it comes of easy profits, refuse the offer”.
However, by the results of the study of Whale Alert, the fraud that appears with the highest frequency among the various attempts of deception that daily appear in line, is the one that should cause the greatest suspicion. This is called a “Giveaway” and consists of a simple offer: a well-known financial magnate or popular character in the ecosystem of cryptocurrencies offers to return the funds sent in BTC or ETH multiplied by 10 or by 100.
Of course, this is a case of identity theft, for example, through accounts in social networks very similar to the real, or with the same profile picture of the character you want to impersonate.
The type of scam most prominent today is the Giveaway, in which appears a celebrity like Elon Musk or a house change of cryptocurrencies known, and can pick between a few thousand up to USD 300,000, depending on the effort and skill of the scammers.
Whale Alert, report Chasing the crooks,
The authors of the study make it clear that the data on which they are based are still incomplete and encourage readers to report any fraud that have been the victim. They also point out that generally those who are scammed, do not have enough experience to check data, such as, for example, addresses that are recipients of funds proposed by the malicious actors.
Last June, Breaking News reported the findings of a report the firm OXT, which analyzed the movements and transactions of Bitcoin and other networks, discovering the methods used by criminals to obfuscate their transactions illegitimate in cryptocurrencies.
In view of the great peak of the platforms of the finance decentralized or DeFi, hackers have begun to run their scams in that environment. A recent report by the signatures MyCrypto and PhishFort, exposes the existence of more than two dozens of web sites that make you spend for services of platforms such as MakerDAO, Fulcrum, Uniswap or Curve Finance, among others.