FBI says crypto-related fraud losses hit record $11.4 billion in 2025, with seniors bearing the brunt

Cryptocurrency-linked fraud losses reached a record $11.366 billion in 2025, more than half of the $20.9 billion in total internet crime losses tracked by the FBI last year, according to the 2025 Internet Crime Report released by the bureau’s Internet Crime Complaint Center recently.

The IC3 received 181,565 crypto-related complaints in 2025, a 21% increase year-over-year, with an average reported loss of $62,604. A total of 18,589 victims reported losing more than $100,000 in crypto-related schemes.

Overall, the IC3 fielded 1,008,597 complaints in 2025, the first time the agency has crossed the one-million mark in its 25-year history. Total losses across all categories rose 26% from the $16.6 billion reported in 2024.

Seniors hit hardest, again

Americans 60 and older filed 44,555 crypto complaints and reported $4.4 billion in losses, by far the largest share of any age bracket. That figure is roughly 56% higher than the $2.84 billion the same cohort lost to crypto scams in 2024, as The Block previously reported.

Across all crime types, seniors reported $7.8 billion in total losses to the IC3, a 59% jump from the previous year. Roughly 12,444 complainants aged 60 or older lost more than $100,000 each.

Investment fraud still the engine

Crypto investment scams remained the single largest source of financial damage in the report, generating $7.2 billion in losses across 61,559 complaints. Complaint volume in the category rose 48% from 2024, and losses climbed 25%.

The FBI again attributed most of these schemes to organized criminal enterprises in Southeast Asia that rely on trafficked labor inside scam compounds in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. The bureau pointed to its newly formed U.S. Attorney’s Office District of Columbia Scam Center Strike Force, which has frozen or seized more than $580 million in digital assets tied to Chinese transnational organized crime since launching in November.

Recovery scams, in which fraudsters pose as law firms, government officials or even the IC3 itself to extract additional funds from prior victims, generated 10,516 complaints and $1.4 billion in losses.

ATM scams accelerate

Fraud routed through cryptocurrency ATMs and kiosks continued to climb sharply. The IC3 logged 13,460 complaints involving the machines in 2025, with $389 million in losses, a 58% increase in losses and a 23% rise in complaints from the year prior. Victims 60 and older accounted for $257.4 million of those losses across 6,188 complaints.

The acceleration coincides with a wave of state-level scrutiny of kiosk operators, including a Connecticut order suspending Bitcoin Depot’s operating license and new licensing regimes in West Virginia.

AI’s growing footprint

For the first time, the IC3 broke out artificial intelligence as a tracked descriptor. The agency received 22,364 AI-related complaints with adjusted losses of $893 million in 2025. Investment scams accounted for $632 million of that total, and roughly $658.7 million of AI-flagged losses also involved crypto, suggesting heavy overlap between the two categories.

The bureau noted that overall investment scam losses topping $8 billion likely understate AI’s true role, since “many victims do not realize the extent AI may be involved in scams.”

Recoveries and intervention

The IC3 Recovery Asset Team initiated 3,900 Financial Fraud Kill Chain actions in 2025 against $1.164 billion in attempted theft, freezing $679 million for a 58% success rate.

Operation Level Up, the bureau’s proactive crypto-investment-scam victim notification program, notified 3,780 victims in 2025, an estimated $225.9 million in prevented losses. Of those notified, 78% were unaware they were being scammed when contacted, and 38 victims were referred to a victim specialist for suicide intervention.

California led all states in crypto-related losses at $2.099 billion, followed by Texas ($1.016 billion), Florida ($914.5 million) and New York ($593.4 million). Oregon ranked fifth at $545.9 million despite placing 25th in complaint volume, suggesting unusually large per-victim losses in the state.

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