Crypto
Crypto Investment Scams Were the Most Costly Type of Fraud in the U.S. in 2025
Americans lost $7.2 billion to crypto investment scams in 2025, according to a new report from the FBI, making it the top source of financial losses from fraud reported to the agency last year. Many people don’t call the FBI after getting scammed, which means the real total is likely far larger.
The news comes from the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) annual report, released Monday, which tracks not just crypto investment fraud, but online scams targeting the elderly, and ranswomware attacks, among others. The agency received 1,008,597 total complaints in 2025, up from 859,532 complaints in 2024. The total amount lost was over $20 billion last year.
Investment fraud was the most common type of scam reported, accounting for 49% of all cyber-related complaints in 2025, with a majority of those related to crypto investment scams.
Crypto investment scammers make an effort to appear like legitimate operations, promising huge returns to unsuspecting marks. Victims are first contacted through a number of ways, including text messages, social media, Google ads, and dating apps. Scammers will sometimes set up websites made to look like investment platforms where victims can send crypto and watch as their profits tick up steadily.
What the victim doesn’t understand is that the number they’re seeing rise each day is fake. The crypto has been sent to the scammers and the number they’re seeing in their supposed account is not real. The website is a mirage that isn’t actually holding their crypto, whether it’s bitcoin, ether, or any number of shitcoins. But as that number rises, the scammers encourage the victims to “invest” even more.
What happens when you try to extract any of that money? That’s where the victim might start to get suspicious. Because there’s always an excuse. And more often than not, the scammers will tell a victim that there are fees for withdrawing money.
The FBI has released its IC3 report annually for 25 years and 2025 is the first year that features a section on artificial intelligence. The FBI received 22,364 complaints about AI-assisted crimes, totaling $893 million in lost money. But that’s likely a vast undercount of the problem, given the fact that many people don’t send a report to the FBI when they get scammed, and others likely have no idea they’re talking with people who uses AI tools for impersonation.
Scammers will often use AI audio, video deepfakes, or fake documents created with generative AI imaging tools to convince victims they’re legitimate. Elon Musk is one of the most popular figures that crypto scammers will impersonate, as Gizmodo has reported in recent years. Scammers will often try to convince potential victims that they’re talking to the real Tesla CEO and convince people to invest in his businesses with cryptocurrencies.
Gizmodo filed a Freedom of Information Act request with FTC in 2024 that revealed some of the stories from people who were scammed by Elon Musk impersonators or people who said they were associated with the billionaire. One of the complaints was from a victim in their 50s from Michigan who said they lost $700,000.
The story is exceptional for the amount of money lost, but the techniques are common enough that they’re worth quoting at length:
In the end of June, 2023 I responded to Elon Musk’s day trading commercial on Instagram. I got a phone call from a person and started online trading with XT-BestSolutions. I’m dealing with one person [redacted] over the Viber phone services. He said he’s based in Barcelona, Spain. He guided me through the trading process daily on the XT-BestSolutions trading platform.
He also guided me through the process of transferring my money from my US Huntington bank account through Crypto wallets to XT-BestSolutions trading platform. All transaction were made through different Sources to change US dollars to cryptocurrency.
Starting on June 30, 2023 to current date, I transferred $700,000 to my XT-BestSolutions account. Through the process of online trading, XT-BestSolutions company credited me $200,000. Even though I still have more than $700,000 in my XT-BestSolutions trading platform account, I cannot withdraw any money back until I add $200,000 more to my XT-BestSolutions account to cover this additional credit, and after this (accordingly to what he saying) I will be able to withdraw all $900,000.
Its become more suspicious to me because I am not able to get information about the company, such as an address, email address or any other contact information except the phone number and one person I communicating with. [redacted]
My accountant has advised me to contact the FBI before I make anymore money transactions.
Other crypto scams include celebrities like Johnny Depp or Donald Trump, but romance scams are another popular category of investment fraud. Sometimes referred to as pig butchering, scammers will often pose as attractive people who lure unsuspecting marks with promises of love but wind up giving “investment” advice.
Victims are encouraged to contact the FBI, but the public should be aware that there are also plenty of scammers posing as FBI agents, specifically employees of the IC3.
As digital assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies become increasingly integrated into financial markets, public pension systems face important questions about whether and how to incorporate them into investment portfolios.
On June 23, a Reason Foundation webinar with leading experts explored how public pension systems should evaluate cryptocurrency investments; how to assess and manage the risk and volatility for public workers, retirees, and taxpayers; and how to provide the public with transparency into these investments.
You can watch the webinar here:
The panelists and moderator of this webinar:
Brad Briner
Brad Briner is the treasurer of North Carolina. Before taking office, he served as co-chief investment officer for Willett Advisors, which manages the philanthropic and personal investment assets of Mike Bloomberg. His prior experience includes roles at Morgan Creek Capital, UNC Management Company, ArcLight Capital, and Goldman Sachs. Briner graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Morehead Scholar with a degree in economics with distinction and earned an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School.
Todd D. Kanaster
Todd D. Kanaster is a director at S&P Global Ratings specializing in municipal pensions and retiree medical benefits. His work includes analyzing issuers, training analysts, and serving as a nationwide specialist on public pension and retiree health care issues within S&P’s local government credit analysis. He is an Associate of the Society of Actuaries, a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries, and a Fellow of the Conference of Consulting Actuaries.
Mariana Trujillo
Mariana Trujillo is managing director of government finance at Reason Foundation. Her research focuses on the fiscal health of federal, state, and local governments, with particular attention to the impact of pension liabilities on government finances and the effect of retirement benefits on public-employee recruitment and retention.
Leonard Gilroy (moderator)
Leonard Gilroy is vice president of government reform at Reason Foundation and senior managing director of Reason’s Pension Integrity Project. Under his leadership, the Pension Integrity Project assists policymakers and other stakeholders in designing, analyzing and implementing public sector pension reforms.
Related policy study:
U.S. public pension and trust fund investment in digital assets
Frequently asked questions about public pensions investing in Bitcoin and other digital assets
Key Takeaways
- Bank of Thailand plans to hold public hearings by late 2026 for a 1:1 baht-backed stablecoin.
- Regulators suspended 5,000 Alipay and Wechat Pay accounts to curb unauthorized yuan QR transfers.
- Speculative retail forex operations will face stiff fines under Thailand’s 1942 Exchange Control Act.
Baht-Pegged Stablecoin Framework
The Bank of Thailand plans to introduce a stablecoin pegged to the national currency as part of an initiative to support financial innovation, central bank Governor Vitai Ratanakorn announced June 30. Speaking at a financial conference hosted by efinanceThai, Ratanakorn said the central bank will hold a public hearing on the proposal by the end of the year.
Under the initial framework, any operating stablecoin must be fully backed on a 1-to-1 basis by Thai baht reserves. The central bank will limit the first phase of the rollout to financial institutions for settlement purposes only, with broader use cases to be evaluated later.
According to a local report, the central bank is also tightening enforcement on cross-border mobile payment platforms. Ratanakorn reiterated that all personal QR code payments in Thailand must be conducted exclusively in baht.
Regulators have suspended approximately 5,000 accounts used for peer-to-peer yuan transfers via Alipay and Wechat Pay between February 2025 and May 2026. The central bank is currently coordinating with those platforms to review transactions and identify regulatory violations.
Payment service providers that process transactions in unauthorized currencies face corrective measures, fines, suspensions, or the revocation of their licenses, Ratanakorn warned. Additionally, the governor clarified that the central bank will not grant licenses for retail foreign-exchange operations intended for speculative trading.
Facilitating transfers to settle speculative forex transactions may violate the Exchange Control Act of 1942, which carries penalties of up to 3 years’ imprisonment and a $6,012 (200,000 baht) fine. Furthermore, individuals who advertise or promote speculative currency trading could face fraud charges under a 1984 emergency decree, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and significant daily fines.
Ratanakorn said the central bank’s dual objective is to foster financial technology while maintaining strict control over consumer protection and domestic currency flows.
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