Australians Lost Over $2 Million to Crypto Scams Last Year

Australian customers lost more than $2.1 million to cryptocurrency tricks in 2017, the nation's Competition and Consumer Commission says.

The Commission declared the discoveries Monday in a yearly tricks report, additionally noticing that the ascent in crypto-related tricks compared with an expansion in coin costs through 2017. Of the more than $2 million lost in 2017, tricks cost purchasers around $100,000 every month amongst January and September, the report said. Anyway in December - when bitcoin's value soar to almost $20,000 - shoppers announced misfortunes surpassing $700,000, the Commission said.

The report showed that phony ICOs, crypto-related fraudulent business models and ransomware installments were normal methods for cheating buyers.

The Commission said it anticipates that crypto-related misrepresentation will keep, taking note of, "as with different tricks, this is likely the very hint of a greater challenge."

That being stated, the report noted, Australians as a rule lost more than $340 million in tricks by and large, with $64 million being lost to speculation tricks particularly a year ago.

Venturing back, the report features one example of a plague of tricks that traverses the globe.

As already revealed by CoinDesk, only seven prominent tricks, hacks and assaults in 2017 brought about the loss of around $490 million of shopper reserves. In like manner, the Wall Street Journal as of late revealed that of the 1,450 ICOs it assessed, 271 had "warnings that incorporate appropriated financial specialist reports, guarantees of ensured returns and absent or counterfeit official groups."