In its annual report on financial fraud, the Australian National Consumer Regulator indicated that fraudulent use of crypto-currencies last year caused Australian losses of more than 2.1 million Australian dollars.
The Australian Commission on Competition and Consumer Protection (ACCC) on Monday published a document according to which the total loss of Australians amounted to $ 340 million, of which 200,000 people suffered from fraud – both figures are a kind of a new record in this area.
The fraud related to cryptocurrencies, relative to these figures, is small, but not the most significant share of these total losses. In the period from January to September 2017, ACCC recorded about $ 100,000 losses per month, related to fraudulent activities in the field of cryptocurrency. However, the rapid growth in the value of the cryptocurrency in the fourth quarter of 2017 coincided with a sharp increase in fraud in the sector, the ACCC said.
“Since the cost of actual critical flows has increased, losses as a result of falsification have also increased. PEOPLE HAVE CONSIDERED THEIR INVESTMENTS IN THEM REAL. TO THE END OF THE YEAR OF THE MESSAGE OF LOSSES RELATED TO CRYPTOCURRENCIES EXCEEDED 2.1 MILLION DOLLARS, BUT AS AND IN THE EVENT WITH OTHER SCRATCHES, THIS IS PROBABLY, THE VERY TOP OF THE ICEBERG, “- SAID IN THE REPORT.
Since the price of bitcoin reached a maximum of about $ 20,000 in December 2017, the number of losses reported to the agency exceeded $ 700,000. The average claimed losses rose from $ 1,885 in January to $ 13,205 by the end of the year, ACCC reported.
ICO and financial pyramids are named in the report as the most common forms of fraud. Earlier this year, the ACCC reported that during the past year it received a total of 1,129 complaints from the public related to cryptocurrency fraud.
Recall that in a recent study published by the Wall Street Journal reported that it found signs of a scam in 19% of the ICO, ever conducted at the moment.
In any case, investors’ interest in ICO remains, and entrepreneurs seem ready to bear risks and buy new tokens. The same is true for ICO business in China, which ignores government bans: here investors continue to participate in the offers of tokens bypassing the law.
Initial coins offerings (ICO) raised more money in the first three months of 2018 than for the whole of 2017, according to CoinDesk. The total amount of fees has already exceeded $6.3 billion.
