Cryptocurrency theft has stolen $3,000,000,000 this year SO FAR

[thewayne]

Last year - the entirety of 2021, theft accounted for $2.1B.

My question is whether they can top $4B before 31 December.

The CBS site complains if you have an ad blocker up, FYI.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cryptocurrency-theft-hacker-chainalysis-blockchain-crime/

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/22/10/15/0137213/3-billion-in-cryptocurrency-stolen-this-year-so-far

Comments

[disneydream06]

Darn, I am so sorry that I haven't invested in crypto.
NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[thewayne]

If you'd bought it when it was single or double-digits per Bitcoin, dumped it in the last couple of years, great!  But yeah, it's still a Ponzi scheme regardless.  There's no "there" there backing it.

[disneydream06]

I will stick with Old Fart monies. LOL...............

[armiphlage]

Ponzi scheme or money laundering ... why not both?

[thewayne]

The most common uses of cryptocurrency is apparently buying drugs online and paying ransomware demands, so definitely not for legal activities.  And then the delay for transactions to be posted into the ledger just doesn't make it a practical way for rapid activity.  The FBI and other government agencies have been able to unwind transactions that have gone through mixers, so money laundering isn't really a good use for them at this point.

[kathmandu]

Well, *if* the prices keep going up, stealing the same number of 'coins' has a higher dollar value.

I'm guessing thefts are actually carried out in 'per-wallet' or 'per-transaction' counts, but inflation in per-coin value still inflates those.

[thewayne]

I would expect the thefts were calculated at the point-in-time valuation.  But I really don't care. :-)

[dewline]

Not sorry that I don't have anything locked up in cryptocurrency. That I know of, anyway.

I expect the crime-doers involved will make that $4B target by year's end, whatever the world's authorities do about it.

[silveradept]

One wonders why there are still people who aren't engaged in or at least adjacent to criminal activity (or their victims) who are doing things in cryptocurrency. It's a solution aggressively trying to create its own problem.