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A new report from the crypto intelligence firm CipherTrace is out, tracking how much investors and exchanges have lost due to theft, fraud and additional crimes in 2019.
The report estimates the total dollar amount of all crypto lost will likely reach $4.3 billion by the end of the year.
Thieves looted $356 million in Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and other crypto assets from exchanges during the first quarter of 2019, and $124 million in the second quarter – a total of $480 million. According to the CipherTrace Q2 2019 Cryptocurrency Anti-Money Laundering Report,
“Insider thefts were by far the largest offenders, inflicting massive losses on investors and exchange users. 2019 could also turn out to be the year of the exit scam.
On top of the QuadrigaCX disaster, which is updated in this report, one alleged Ponzi scheme in this quarter appears to have defrauded millions of users out of $2.9 billion in crypto assets. Other exit scams, such as Coinroom and Bitsane, are still under investigation and those losses are not included in this report’s total.”
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Highlights from the report
• Users and investors lost approximately $2.9 billion as “South Korean” Plus Token app and exchange went offline.
• Hackers used advanced cyberattack to steal $44 million from world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance.
• Canadian court reveals long history of misappropriation of user funds by QuadrigaCX founder.
• Japanese exchange BITPoint hacked for $30 million.
• BestMixer mixing service seized by law enforcement authorities.
• European authorities seized three dark web markets and assets.
• CFTC charged Control-Finance in $147M Ponzi scheme.
• SIM swapping victim won $75.8 million judgement against hacker.
CipherTrace notes the increasing difficulty crypto scammers have in cashing out, stating that they’ll need to use innovative new ways to turn the stolen crypto into clean, spendable fiat currencies.
In all of 2018, CipherTrace reported $1.7 billion in crypto losses.
You can check out the full Q2 report here.
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