Half of 2025 U.S. Fraud Losses Were Linked to Cryptocurrency Scams

The FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report sings a familiar tune—online fraud plagues millions of Americans every year, with losses climbing into the billions. But in 2025, Americans who submitted cryptocurrency fraud complaints to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported significantly high losses—181,565 complaints totaled more than $11 billion in losses, up 22 percent from 2024.

Now in its 25th year, the IC3 received more than 1 million complaints in 2025, compared to 288,000 a decade ago in 2015. Internet fraud reports spiked significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic and have not meaningfully  significantly since. Losses have also steadily climbed since the IC3 started tracking complaints, but they now top $20 billion, compared to just $1 billion in 2015 and $16.6 billion in 2024—a 26-percent increase in year-over-year losses.

The average loss reported last year was just under $20,700. The highest-affected age group was Americans aged 60 or older, with 201,266 complaints and $7,748,911,371 in reported losses.

Phishing or spoofing is the top crime type, cited in 191,561 complaints, followed by extortion in 89,129 complaints. But when it comes to losses, investment scams reign supreme, accounting for more than $8.6 billion in losses, even though they account for fewer overall fraud incidents than extortion scams. Business email compromise ($3 billion) and tech or customer support scams ($2.1 billion) followed.

Investment frauds typically involved losses of cryptocurrency (72 percent of incidents, $7.2 billion in reported losses). These scams are often long-term cons that deceive victims into investing large sums of money.

Recovery scams are also on the rise. In these incidents, fictitious law firms or government officials target cryptocurrency scam victims, claiming to be able to help them recover lost funds. In one scheme, fraudsters impersonated IC3 employees. The IC3 gathered more than 10,500 complaints about recovery scams last year, with an estimated $1.4 billion in losses.

The IC3 report also tracked the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in cybercrime cases. In 2025, more than 22,000 complaints reported AI-related information, with losses exceeding $893 million. The FBI warned that chat generators and deepfakes are becoming increasingly lifelike, making fraud detection harder—especially when fraudsters manipulate a victim’s emotions to generate panic and quicker action.

“Subjects in investment scams often use AI to enhance their conversations with potential victims allowing the scammers to quickly generate thousands of conversations that appear different to each prospective victim,” the report said. “Investment clubs employ AI-generated videos and voices of celebrities, CEOs, or trusted figures to create fraudulent, high-stakes opportunities. These scams often feature fake, professional-looking endorsements on social media or in video calls. This makes it harder for victims to detect they are in a scam. In 2025, losses in investment complaints with a reported AI-nexus, surpassed $632 million. However, overall losses to investment scams exceeded $8 billion, demonstrating that many victims do not realize the extent AI may be involved in scams.”