As Bitcoin surged to fresh all‑time highs in late 2025, the crypto market’s rally was matched by a disturbing rise in fraud: Americans reported billions in losses to crypto scams, according to the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report.
Key figures
- $11.4 billion: total U.S. losses to cryptocurrency fraud in 2025 — up 22% year‑over‑year.
- 181,565: complaints involving crypto assets, a 21% increase from 2024.
- 1,008,597: total complaints logged by the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) in 2025, up from 859,532 in 2024.
- Top complaint categories: investment schemes, extortion, and phishing/spoofing.
Who was hit hardest
- Seniors were disproportionately affected. Complainants aged 60+ reported about $7.7 billion in losses — a 37% rise over 2024 — underscoring continued targeting of retirees and older Americans.
The AI angle: new and growing threat
- For the first time the FBI’s report includes an AI section. The IC3 recorded 22,364 complaints tied to AI‑enabled scams, with reported losses approaching $893 million.
- These scams commonly use high‑pressure tactics and AI tools such as fabricated social profiles, voice cloning, counterfeit IDs, and doctored video of public figures or relatives to coerce victims into sending funds.
Crypto ATMs and kiosks
- Complaints tied to crypto ATMs reached 13,460 in 2025, causing $389 million in losses — a 23% rise in complaints and a 58% jump in dollar losses versus 2024.
More complaint breakdown
- Investment schemes were the single largest category with 61,559 filings.
- Extortion: 23,797 complaints.
- Phishing/spoofing: 7,164 complaints.
- The IC3 also documented tech/customer support fraud, personal data breaches, employment scams, business email compromise, and a range of other fraud types.
Where complaints were concentrated
- California led with 20,878 crypto‑related complaints, followed by Texas (13,965), Florida (13,381), New York (8,088), and Pennsylvania (5,118).
FBI response and prevention efforts
- Operation Level Up, launched in 2024, proactively identifies and notifies individuals in the process of falling victim to crypto investment fraud. It has alerted more than 8,000 potential victims and helped curb over $500 million in losses.
- Building on that outreach, the FBI launched Operation Winter SHIELD in 2026, focusing on actionable steps organizations can take to strengthen cybersecurity defenses.
Why it matters
The report shows that as crypto markets grow, fraudsters are scaling tactics and adopting powerful tools like AI to make scams more convincing. The elderly remain a prime target, and point‑of‑sale avenues such as ATMs are increasingly exploited. The FBI’s evolving operations aim to detect and disrupt schemes earlier, but the data underscores the need for heightened vigilance across the industry and among everyday users.
Featured image: OpenArt. Chart: TradingView.com.
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