Crypto Crime Appears To Drop in 2023 As Digital Asset ‘Romance’ Scams Surge by 85x Since 2020: Chainalysis

The amount of funds sent to illicit addresses in 2023 suggests a decline in cryptocurrency-based criminal activities, according to a new report from market intelligence platform Chainalysis.

The Chainalysis 2024 Crypto Crime Report says the value received by illicit cryptocurrency addresses dropped to $24.2 billion last year, down from $39.6 billion recorded in 2022.

Chainalysis acknowledges that the 2023 number could grow, however.

“As always, we have to caveat by saying that these figures are lower bound estimates based on inflows to the illicit addresses we’ve identified today. One year from now, these totals will almost certainly be higher, as we identify more illicit addresses and incorporate their historic activity into our estimates.” 

The report says revenue from scams fell by 29.2%, but romance scam tactics become more prevalent.

“Romance scams in particular grew significantly in 2023, more than doubling revenue year-over-year. In fact, our data suggests that romance scam activity has grown by 85x since 2020.”

Chainalysis says the surging number of romance scams is concerning because it has the worst impact on victims based on average payment size.

“Scams: On-chain payment size data suggests that romance scams are the most damaging type of crypto scam on a per victim basis.”

Romance scams are also more difficult to uncover because scammers target individuals and not the masses.

“We still believe insights into romance scams in particular suffer from underreporting. We hypothesize that the true damage of scamming is greater than what reporting to the FBI and our on-chain metrics show.”

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