In 2025, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received 1,008,597 complaints, up from 859,532 in 2024, with reported losses of nearly $21 billion. Cryptocurrency was involved in 181,565 of them, "totaling more than $11 billion." More than half of every dollar Americans reported losing to internet crime last year moved through crypto.
Two agencies, two counts
The Federal Trade Commission keeps its own count. In 2025, consumers filed 3 million fraud reports with the FTC and reported $15.9 billion in losses, up from 2.6 million reports and over $12 billion in 2024. Investment scams were the costliest category, at more than $7.9 billion, with an average loss of over $10,000. Only bank payments carried more reported losses than cryptocurrency.
The two sets of numbers should not be added together. They come from different systems that partly overlap, and both count only what victims chose to report. The FTC itself notes that most fraud goes unreported, so the real totals are higher.
The scheme behind the largest losses
The FBI says investment fraud "remains the primary driver, accounting for nearly 49% of all scam-related losses." Most of it follows one script, which the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network calls pig butchering.
These scams are referred to as 'pig butchering' as they resemble the practice of fattening a hog before slaughter.
FinCEN describes scammers who "leverage fictitious identities, the guise of potential relationships, and elaborate storylines" to win a victim's trust. According to the FBI, first contact usually comes "through text messages, social media sites, advertisements, or dating applications." The victim is shown a polished trading site where the balance appears to grow. The end comes when they try to withdraw: there are "fees," or, as the SEC warns, "purported taxes" to pay first. Then the site and the contact disappear.
The scale is industrial. In September 2026, FinCEN reported that 33,904 bank reports filed between September 2023 and December 2025 tied about $12.7 billion in financial activity to suspected digital asset investment scams, many run from overseas scam centers.
The kiosk problem
Cryptocurrency kiosks, often called Bitcoin ATMs, are another channel, especially in calls from people posing as officials. The FBI received more than 13,400 complaints involving kiosks in 2025, with losses over $388 million. More than half came from people over 50, who lost over $302 million.
Older adults carry much of the burden. People 60 and over reported about $7.7 billion in losses to IC3 in 2025. In its 2024 study of Bitcoin ATM fraud, the FTC found that "more than two of every three dollars reported lost to fraud using these machines was lost by an older adult." Reported losses at the machines grew nearly tenfold from 2020 to 2023 and topped $65 million in the first half of 2024 alone, with a median loss of $10,000.
The second scam
Victims are often targeted again by fake law firms and "recovery" services that promise to get the money back for a fee. The FBI's 2025 warning is blunt: "The US Government does not request payment for law enforcement services provided," and "there are no law firms which are officially authorized partners of US Government agencies."
Red flags regulators agree on
- A stranger reaches out first, by text, social media, or a dating app, and the talk turns to crypto investing.
- Returns are promised or guaranteed. The SEC says "risk-free," "zero risk," and "guaranteed profit" are "hallmarks of a fraud."
- There is pressure to invest now, before a deadline.
- You must pay fees or taxes before you can withdraw.
- Anyone asks for payment by crypto kiosk, gift card, or wire to "protect" your money.
- Someone offers to recover lost crypto for an upfront payment.
If you have been targeted, report it to the FBI at ic3.gov and to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Reports feed the numbers in this article, and the investigations behind them.
