- Estimated crypto scam losses reached $17 billion in 2025.
- Average scam payment rose to $2,764, a 253% increase from 2024.
- Impersonation scams using deepfakes grew more than 1,400% year over year.
- Scams linked to AI vendors averaged about $3.2 million per operation—roughly 4.5 times higher than others.
- Scammers increasingly use decentralized finance tools and AI-enabled methods to scale and cash out.
In 2025, cryptocurrency frauds caused an estimated $17 billion in losses worldwide as Artificial Intelligence and impersonation tactics made scams faster and more convincing, according to the Chainalysis report. The report finds larger payments, new AI tools, and shifts toward decentralized platforms drove the surge.
The average reported scam payment rose to $2,764 in 2025 from $782 in 2024, a 253% increase. Chainalysis analysts say that rise reflects both higher volumes and more believable approaches made possible by AI and deepfakes.
“On a time-weighted basis, you get faster scale and better believability,” said Eric Jardine, Head of Research at Chainalysis. The study notes that over 70% of AI-enabled scams sit in the top 50th percentile of transfer volume, yielding bigger returns per transfer.
Scams with on-chain links to AI vendors averaged about $3.2 million per operation, roughly 4.5 times the revenue of scams without those links. The report ties this pattern to face-swap software, deepfakes, and large language models provided by Chinese vendors and distributed through channels like Telegram.
Impersonation frauds using deepfaked images of officials rose sharply—more than 1,400%—as criminals posed as government workers, banks, and crypto platforms. One wide-reaching phishing campaign imitated toll alerts and sent up to 330,000 texts in a day; investigators traced it to a Chinese group known as Darcula, or the “Smishing Triad.” The report says sophisticated phishing kits behind such campaigns likely cost under $500.
Longer-term “pig butchering” schemes, where scammers build relationships before demanding large transfers, remain highly profitable. In one case, a San Jose woman lost nearly $1 million in crypto before using ChatGPT to identify the scammer.
The study also reports a move away from centralized exchanges toward DEXs, DeFi bridges, and protocols to move stolen funds. More advanced AI could automate the final cash-out step by creating fake, KYC-compliant exchange accounts. “These cases demonstrate the scale of modern cryptocurrency scam operations and their increasing integration with traditional organized crime,” the report said, noting links to scam compounds in Myanmar and Cambodia and U.S. enforcement actions in December to shut related domains.
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