Cryptocurrency scams on course for record numbers in 2022

Six months ago, you couldn’t move for crypto trading advertisements, constant YouTube and Facebook tipsters, and incessant Tweets from high-profile fanatics like Elon Musk.

Cryptocurrency is constantly being legitimised as a key financial player, and as long as it remains seriously unregulated, there will always be huge risk factors tied to it. The pros of going decentralised are constantly touted about, but the drawbacks perhaps aren’t given the appropriate level of consideration.

It probably won’t come as a surprise, that younger folk (aged between 20 and 49) were three times more likely to be scammed than other age groups. The promise of quickly turning a buck, paired with constantly having crypto shoved down our throats on social media has all but ensured that.

In-fact, almost half the victims from this demographic stated that their scammer originally targeted them through the guise of social media – Instagram and Facebook being the most mentioned platforms, among others.

The older victims in this data pool were found to lose far larger sums of money at once, which also makes sense.

While the majority of young people dabble in the practice to test the waters, more mature opportunists may be allured by the prospect of cutting banks and governments out of the loop altogether with long-term savings and larger investments.

Now, it has to be stated that we’re in no way victim blaming here. It’s incredibly discouraging to know that people of all ages are being shafted out of their hard-earned money. With discussions around the downsides of crypto finally getting louder, however, we can hope to see a tail off in the numbers by the end of year reports.

Scammers aside, legitimate investments are losing massive amounts of dough right now. Crypto isn’t all bad by any means, but keep your wits about you and exercise caution with your own financial endeavours, please.