FOMO's Dark Side: Americans Lose $11.4B to Crypto Scams in Record Year

Americans lost $11.4 billion to cryptocurrency scams in 2025, a 22% increase from the prior year, according to a new FBI report. That's roughly the market cap of a mid-tier altcoin, except instead of a rug pull, it's your grandma's retirement fund walking straight into a pig butchering scheme.

The FBI says most crypto scams are run by organized criminal groups in Southeast Asia that use human trafficking victims as forced labor to operate long-term, psychologically manipulative investment schemes. Nothing says "decentralized finance" like modern slavery powering your Telegram group admin's lambo dreams.

Complaints involving cryptocurrency rose 21% to 181,565, with average losses of $62,604 and nearly 18,600 victims each losing more than $100,000 amid a broader surge in online fraud. To put that in perspective: that's more than the average American's annual salary, gone to a guy sliding into your DMs claiming he's "mining ETH" in his mom's basement.

"Cryptocurrency investment scams are sophisticated long-term scams using psychological manipulation, the appearance of legitimacy, and exploitation of cryptocurrencies to deceive victims into investing large sums of money," the report said. Translation: they actually dox themselves on LinkedIn now. The scammer's LinkedIn. With the stock photo of a guy on a yacht.

The report also noted that most crypto scams are perpetrated by organized criminal enterprises based in Southeast Asia that exploit victims of human trafficking as forced labor to run the operations. So next time someone tells you to "DYOR," maybe also check if the project is being run by actual trafficked humans. This is why we can't have nice things.

Crypto analytics firm Chainalysis released a report in January revealing that as much as $17 billion in crypto was lost worldwide to scams and frauds in 2025. That's seventeen billion reasons to remember: if it's too good to be true, it's probably a guy in a scam center in Cambodia.

Impersonation, crypto exchange impostors and AI-generated scams against individuals were gradually surpassing losses to cyber-attacks as the leading methods criminals were using to steal digital assets, according to the Crypto Crime Report. Now your AI girlfriend is scamming you. We're living in the future and it's bleak.

The FBI noted that the number of victims increased significantly. In 2025, there were 181,565 complaints involving cryptocurrency, a 21% increase. The average damage per case was $62,604, highlighting how victims are often drawn into schemes that extract substantial amounts rather than small sums. They're not going for the $50 rug pull anymore. No, they want your house.

Losses are also heavily concentrated. Nearly 18,600 complainants each lost more than $100,000, suggesting many victims are losing life-changing amounts, including savings and retirement funds. That's 18,600 people who definitely aren't laughing at "wen lambo" jokes anymore.

More broadly, crypto scams now sit at the center of a wider surge in online fraud. Americans filed more than 1 million cybercrime complaints in 2025, with losses exceeding $20.8 billion. Fraud and scams accounted for the overwhelming majority of those losses, reflecting what the FBI describes as a rapidly evolving threat landscape. The only thing evolving faster than the scams is the cope threads on Twitter.