Per a recent Chainalysis brief, 2025 stood out for recording the largest surge in cryptocurrency scam losses ever. Last year, illicit actors stole roughly $17 billion.
The report highlights a 253% increase in the average transaction size for crypto scams. The mean amount in 2024 was $782, while in 2025 it reached $2,764.
Scammers now have far more avenues. These include AI-generated deepfakes, phishing, employing AI in the “pig butchering” scheme—where victims are encouraged to deposit ever-increasing funds over a prolonged duration—impersonation, and much more. As one can observe, AI played a significant role here. More specifically, AI generated 4.5 times more revenue for scammers than in 2024.
A considerable portion of all illicit activities utilized fraudulent account schemes. A large segment of these was founded on impersonating government agencies. An example of this type of fraud is the E-ZPass scam, where perpetrators utilized fake SMS messages supposedly from American electronic toll collection systems to defraud victims of $1 billion over three years.
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