Crypto scams: how to spot the 9 most common schemes

Almost every crypto scam runs on the same three levers: a promise of guaranteed returns, time pressure, and a request to do something irreversible, such as sending coins, signing a transaction or revealing a seed phrase. Knowing how to spot crypto scams before you send anything matters because the money rarely comes back. The FBI's IC3 report for 2025 counted 181,565 US complaints involving cryptocurrency and $11.366 billion in losses, an average of $62,604 per complaint. Below are the nine most common schemes, seven red flags and a five-minute check you can run on any offer.

How much is lost to crypto scams, and by whom

The two headline estimates for 2025 differ because they measure different things. The FBI counts complaints filed by US victims: $11.366 billion tied to crypto, up 22% from 2024, with 18,589 people reporting losses above $100,000 each. Chainalysis counts on-chain flows worldwide: its scams chapter published January 13, 2026 identified at least $14 billion sent to scam addresses and estimated the final figure could exceed $17 billion once more wallets are attributed.

The FBI data shows which schemes hurt the most:

*The FBI notes these losses may include money lost in the earlier scam that led the victim to contact a "recovery" firm.

Two more numbers are worth remembering. Victims aged 60 and over lost $2.764 billion to crypto investment fraud, more than any other age group. And the average payment to a scammer, per Chainalysis, rose from $782 in 2024 to $2,764 in 2025: fewer victims, but each one hit harder.

Scam 1: "investment" platforms and pig butchering

This is the most expensive scheme by far. The FBI describes the pattern: contact starts with a "wrong number" text, a social media message, an ad or a dating app, then moves to a messaging platform. After weeks of conversation the new friend introduces a private trading group or a platform where their own money is "growing." The victim deposits a small amount, sees profits on screen, sometimes even withdraws some, then invests heavily and often borrows. When they try to cash out, the platform demands "taxes" or an "unlock fee," then disappears. IC3 recorded a 48% rise in complaints about this scheme in 2025 and a 25% rise in losses.

The slang term pig butchering describes the method: the victim is "fattened" with trust and fake profits before everything is taken. The tell is that nobody rushes you at the start. The pressure arrives when you ask to withdraw.

Scam 2: guaranteed yields, trading bots and "arbitrage"

The same idea without the romance: "our bot makes 1% a day," "risk-free arbitrage between exchanges," "staking at 30% a month." The US SEC's investor alert on crypto investment scams lists guaranteed high returns "with little or no risk" as the first red flag and cites BitConnect: according to the SEC, the platform collected roughly 325,000 BTC (about $2 billion at the time) on the promise of profits from a proprietary trading bot, while paying early investors with later investors' money.

Arithmetic is the quickest test. One percent a day compounds to about 37 times your money in a year. The real market, per CoinLab's market pulse, looked like this on October 29, 2026: bitcoin traded near $79,853 at 8:00 UTC, down 4.6% over 30 days and 29.5% over a year. The closest thing to a "risk-free" yield that actually exists in crypto is the perpetual futures funding rate, and on that date it was 0.0053% per 8 hours on Binance, roughly 5.8% annualized. We explain what that rate is and why even it is not guaranteed in our funding rate guide. Anyone offering tens of times more than the entire derivatives market pays is paying you with the next depositor's money.

Scam 3: phishing, clone sites and fake "support"

Phishing steals access rather than money directly: your exchange login, a one-time code, or your wallet's seed phrase. Common forms include an email saying "your account is locked, verify your identity," a clone exchange site with one letter changed in the domain, a search ad placed above the real site, and a "support agent" who messages you privately after you ask a question in a public chat. Chainalysis reports that impersonation scams grew by more than 1,400% in 2025 compared with 2024, including calls "from exchange support" that used stolen customer data to sound credible.

The rule has no exceptions: no exchange, wallet or developer will ever ask for your seed phrase, private key or two-factor code. Anyone who asks is a scammer. For why a seed phrase must never be typed into any website, see our seed phrase explainer.

Scam 4: wallet drainers and malicious signatures

A more technical form of phishing is a site that asks you to "connect wallet" and sign something. Instead of a harmless action you sign a token approval (approve, Permit, setApprovalForAll), and a drainer script empties the wallet within seconds. According to Scam Sniffer's 2025 annual report, drainer attacks via phishing websites on EVM chains took $83.85 million from 106,106 victims. That is 83% less than the $494 million lost in 2024, but the year's largest single theft, $6.5 million, went through one Permit signature. Eleven cases above $1 million made up 27% of the annual total, and Permit and Permit2 signatures accounted for 38% of losses in those large cases.

Defenses: read what the wallet is actually asking you to sign, never connect your main wallet to unfamiliar sites, revoke old token approvals periodically, and keep your core holdings in a cold wallet that never connects to websites at all.

Scam 5: address poisoning

A scheme that is easy to miss. The attacker generates an address whose first and last characters match one you recently sent to, then sends a dust transaction from it to your wallet. Later you copy the recipient from your transaction history, check the start and end, and send your funds to the scammer. A Carnegie Mellon University study presented at USENIX Security 2025 counted more than 270 million poisoning attempts against 17 million addresses on Ethereum and BNB Chain over two years; 6,633 succeeded and netted at least $83.8 million. Stablecoins, above all USDT, are the usual casualty, because people send them repeatedly to the same addresses.

The defense is simple and boring: compare the full address rather than the ends, use your wallet's address book instead of the history, and send a small test amount before a large one.

Scams 6 to 9: giveaways, rug pulls, extortion and "recovery"

• Giveaways and "doubling." "Send 1 BTC to this address and receive 2 back," posted from a hacked or impersonated account of a famous person or company. The bitcoin.org scams page puts it plainly: nobody is sending the doubled amount back, and bitcoin transactions cannot be reversed.
• Rug pulls. A new token with aggressive marketing; once buyers pile in, the creators pull the liquidity and the price goes to zero. Warning signs: an anonymous team, unlocked liquidity, and promises of a "major exchange listing next week."
• Extortion. Emails claiming "we hacked your webcam, pay in bitcoin." IC3 logged 23,797 extortion complaints with a crypto nexus in 2025, the second-largest category after investment fraud. Do not pay; change your passwords and delete the email.
• Recovery scams. After the first loss, a "law firm," "regulator" or "ethical hacker" offers to get the money back for an upfront fee. On August 13, 2025 the FBI issued a dedicated alert about fictitious law firms: they know the exact amounts and dates of your transfers, cite invented agencies such as the "INTFTC," ask for payment in crypto or gift cards, and refuse video calls. No law firm, the FBI stresses, is an "official authorized partner" of any US government agency.

Seven red flags you can see before you send

1. Guaranteed returns. They do not exist in real markets. For a reality check, look at CoinLab's market numbers: on October 29, 2026 the Fear & Greed index sat at 51 ("Neutral") and bitcoin was down 4.6% on the month. Anyone promising steady gains in that market is promising the impossible.
2. They contacted you first. A "wrong number" text, a call "from support," an email "from the exchange." Legitimate services do not open private conversations with you.
3. Urgency. "The window closes in an hour," "your account will be locked today." Time pressure exists so you cannot verify.
4. Any request for a seed phrase, private key or 2FA code. The only answer is no.
5. Withdrawing costs money. "Pay 20% tax before withdrawal," "unlock fee." Real exchanges do not collect tax as a separate upfront transfer.
6. The people cannot be verified. No video call, no license, no entry in a regulator's register, no team history.
7. You are asked to recruit. Referral bonuses are a standard pyramid feature; the SEC pointed to exactly that in the BitConnect case.

A five-minute check before you transfer

1. Find the service yourself, not through the link you were sent: type the address or use a bookmark, and compare the domain character by character.
2. Check registration. In the US, use the professional search on Investor.gov; in the EU, the MiCA register at the national regulator. The European supervisory authorities EBA, ESMA and EIOPA published crypto scam factsheets on December 15, 2025 whose advice includes verifying the source of any message and never sharing personal or banking details. Our guide to choosing an exchange covers how to read licenses and proof of reserves.
3. Do the math on the promise. Convert "per day" and "per month" into annual terms. Above 20⁠–⁠30% a year with no explained source of yield deserves questions; above 100%, you already have the answer.
4. Call back yourself. If "support" called you, hang up and call the number on the official website.
5. Send a test amount and wait for it to arrive before sending the real transfer.

What to do if you already sent the money

Blockchain transactions cannot be reversed, but speed still matters. Save everything: addresses, transaction hashes, chat logs, screenshots of the platform. If the coins went to an exchange address, contact that exchange's security team immediately with the hashes; exchanges do freeze funds on such reports before they are withdrawn. File a report with your police and your national cybercrime center (ic3.gov in the US, the equivalent elsewhere). Above all, do not respond to anyone who then offers to "recover" the funds: per the FBI, recovery scams cost victims a further $1.4 billion in 2025.

Common mistakes

• Trusting profit screenshots. The SEC says images of rapidly rising accounts "are often fake." The balance on a scam platform is drawn in an admin panel.
• Treating familiarity as due diligence. In pig butchering the victim has "known" the contact for months. Trusting a person is not the same as verifying a platform.
• Checking an address by its first and last characters. That is exactly what address poisoning exploits.
• Connecting your main wallet "just to look." The connection itself is harmless, but the next click may be an approval to drain it.
• Paying for "recovery." Any upfront payment to a "lawyer" or "hacker" is a second loss.
• Staying silent out of embarrassment. The sooner a report with hashes reaches the receiving exchange, the better the odds of a freeze.

FAQ

Can crypto sent to a scammer be recovered? The transaction itself cannot be undone. Money is sometimes recovered when it lands on a centralized exchange that freezes it after a report, or through courts and law enforcement after a seizure. There are no guarantees, and anyone who offers one for an upfront fee is a scammer.

How do I tell real exchange support from a fake? Real support never messages you first in private, never asks for a password, seed phrase or 2FA code, and never suggests "moving funds to a safe wallet." Handle every support issue through a ticket inside your account on the official site.

Why do scammers favor USDT and bitcoin? Bitcoin is the best-known asset, so it is the easiest lure. USDT suits scammers because of its stable price and because victims send it repeatedly to the same addresses, which makes address poisoning easier. Chainalysis also notes that impersonation scams increasingly launder through DeFi bridges and decentralized exchanges.

Are scams declining now that drainer losses fell? No. Scam Sniffer recorded an 83% drop in drainer losses but warns that "lower losses ≠ gone threats." Total losses rose in 2025 by both FBI and Chainalysis counts: scammers shifted from mass phishing to expensive targeted schemes and AI tools, which Chainalysis found make an operation 4.5 times more profitable.

This is not investment advice.