As the crypto market rallied through 2025 — led by a strong Bitcoin (BTC) ascent that pushed prices to fresh all‑time highs in the fourth quarter — Americans also faced a sharp rise in crypto‑related scams, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported in its 2025 Internet Crime Report.
Rising Fraud Concern
The FBI said US victims lost $11.4 billion to cryptocurrency fraud in 2025, a 22% increase from the prior year. That figure is based on 181,565 complaints involving crypto assets, itself up 21% year‑over‑year.
The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) logged 1,008,597 complaints in 2025, an increase from 859,532 in 2024. Phishing and spoofing, extortion, and investment schemes remained the complaint categories reported most often.
Older Americans suffered disproportionately large losses. Complainants aged 60 and older reported roughly $7.7 billion in losses — a 37% rise over 2024 — reflecting persistent targeting of retirees and other seniors.
Another growing menace is the use of artificial intelligence (AI): for the first time, the report includes an AI section. The IC3 received 22,364 complaints tied to AI‑enabled scams in 2025, with reported losses approaching $893 million.
Those schemes often deploy high‑pressure tactics while leveraging fabricated social profiles, voice cloning, counterfeit identity documents, and deceptively realistic videos of public figures or victims’ relatives to persuade targets to hand over funds.
California, Texas, Florida Lead In Crypto Complaints
The report also calls out fraud centered on cryptocurrency ATMs and kiosks. In 2025, there were 13,460 complaints linked to crypto ATM use, resulting in $389 million in losses — a 23% climb in complaints and a 58% jump in dollar losses compared with 2024.
By crime type, investment schemes were the most common complaint category, with 61,559 filings. Extortion and phishing/spoofing were also prominent, with 23,797 and 7,164 complaints, respectively.
The IC3 detailed a long list of other fraud types reported in 2025, including tech/customer support fraud, personal data breaches, employment scams, and business email compromise, among others.
Geographically, complaints were concentrated in populous states. California led the nation with 20,878 crypto‑related complaints, followed by Texas (13,965), Florida (13,381), New York (8,088), and Pennsylvania (5,118).
The FBI also outlined its enforcement and prevention efforts. Operation Level Up, launched in 2024, has been a proactive outreach initiative to identify and notify people in the process of falling victim to cryptocurrency investment fraud.
Since the program began, more than 8,000 potential victims have been alerted, and the operation has helped curtail losses by over $500 million. Building on that approach, the FBI launched Operation Winter SHIELD in 2026 to emphasize actionable steps organizations can take to strengthen their cybersecurity posture.
Featured image from OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com
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