Crypto scams fall 65% after gullible noobs exit the market: Chainalysis

cointelegraph.com:

Fewer people have fallen victim to cryptocurrency scams in 2022 so far due to falling asset prices and the exit of inexperienced crypto users from the market, a new crypto crime report reveals. 

According to an Aug. 16 report from Chainalysis, total crypto scam revenue year-to-date is currently sitting at $1.6 billion, equating to a 65% decline from the prior year period, which appears linked to the declining prices of cryptocurrencies.

Chainalysis' Cybercrimes Research Lead Eric Jardine, the author of the report, explains that crypto investors are more likely to fall for scams during bull markets when the investment opportunities and outsized returns are most enticing to victims.

Jardine also hypothesized that bull markets also typically see a higher prevalence of new, inexperienced crypto users, who are more likely to fall victim to scams.

The researcher said the results are also skewed due to the comparatively large PlusToken and Finiko scams in 2021 which netted $3.5 billion in total scam revenue.

Conversely, Jardine notes the largest scam of 2022 so far has only netted $273 million, and is related to cannabis investing platform JuicyFields.io, which has reportedly locked investors out of their accounts on their cannabis-focused “e-growing” service.

While scam revenue has fallen in the year, Jardine notes that crypto-based hacking has bucked the trend, increasing 58.3% through July 2022 to $1.9 billion, a figure that does not include the $190 million Nomad bridge hack that began on Aug. 1.

Jardine said that this increase is largely attributable to the rise of DeFi applications that skyrocketed in 2021:

But Jardine added that it’s not all bad, as smart contract programming languages like Solidity are relatively new and