The volume of fraud involving digital assets in the first half of 2021 amounted to $1.5 billion, which is two to three times higher than the figures for the same period in 2020. This was reported by analytics firm Zecurion, «Известия».
Russia’s share of the total volume was about 2% or $30 million (nearly 2.2 billion rubles at the time of writing).
Experts cite the growing audience of cryptocurrency users and the lure of profiting from the expanding segment amid looser regulatory conditions and volatility in financial markets as the main drivers of fraud.
Experts forecast a further 15% increase in the figure this year.
According to data from ‘Kaspersky Lab’, from July 2020 to July 2021 the global volume of cyber extortion and crimes involving digital assets amounted to at least $1 billion.
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