CipherTrace’s latest report on cryptocurrency and blockchain security showed a marked fall in crypto crime through April of this year.
CipherTrace found that losses from cryptocurrency theft, hacks, or fraud have fallen considerably since January. While the same can’t be said for crime in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, it is certainly encouraging news that crypto crime is falling.
According to the report, crypto criminals were responsible for the loss of $432 million, as of April 30. If crypto crime continues at this pace through the end of the year, then we could reportedly expect to see losses of about $1.2 billion for 2021.
This is a significant decrease from the $1.9 billion recorded last year or the record of $4.5 billion in 2019.
Conversely, a report by Javelin Strategy & Research found that identity fraud in America was rising. Consumers using the U.S. dollar had a combined total of $56 billion in fraud losses for 2020, with identity fraud scams accounting for $43 billion of that cost.
Market maturity
With crypto crime falling and growing mainstream adoption, the industry is showing maturity. With this, infrastructure has improved, with companies and exchanges also boosting their security systems.
This infrastructure growth was first mooted by CipherTrace CEO Dave Jevans last year, when they announced that crypto companies had improved their security, rather than there being a decline in criminals. “What we have seen is that exchanges and other cryptocurrency players have implemented more security procedures,” he said.
This, coupled with developments such as Microsoft and Intel teaming up to stop cryptojacking, is only encouraging for the industry, which has seen some phenomenal growth over the past year.
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