A study shows high-yield investment scams and pig butchering scams received the most crypto, at 50.2% and 33.2%, respectively.
Year-over-year, the number of long-term scams, often known as pig butchering, which involve gradually tricking victims into making larger cryptocurrency payments, increased by forty percent.
There has been a recent expansion of these frauds to various regions, most of which originate from major fraud hubs in Southeast Asia.
Data obtained by Chainalysis, a blockchain forensics company, indicates that con artists who engage in pig butchering have developed over the course of the previous year to broaden their business model beyond the “long con” of scams to include “quicker turnaround employment or work-from-home scams that typically yield smaller victim deposits.”
The on-chain statistics for the year 2024 reveal an increase in the following five sorts of scams: pig butchering, address poisoning, crypto drainers, livestream scams, and blackmail/sextortion con artists.
Despite this, the total number of deposits made to fraudulent pig slaughtering schemes increased by roughly 210% in the year 2024. According to Chainalysis, over this same time period, the average deposit made by each victim decreased by 55%.
“The combination of lower payment amounts and increased deposits could indicate a change in strategy for pig butchering scams. Scammers could be spending less time priming targets, and therefore, receiving smaller payments, in exchange for targeting more victims.”
Chainalysis
There was also a huge increase in the number of other sorts of frauds in 2024. Cryptocurrency drainers, for instance, witnessed a 170% rise in revenue, while the number of deposits increased by 75%.
According to the research, the number of address poisoning scams, which entail targeting users with “higher than average wallet balances,” increased by an astounding 15,000% as a result of a big attack that occurred in May.
Huione Guarantee, an online peer-to-peer network that is affiliated with Huione Group, has processed $70 billion in cryptocurrency transactions since 2021.
It is thought that Huione Guarantee plays a significant part in enabling frauds such as pig slaughtering. Chainalysis has mentioned that Huobi Guarantee has completed these transactions.
