Americans lost an estimated $80.7 billion to crypto scams in 2025, according to a new report from the Consumer Federation of America, which argues that official complaint data captures only a fraction of the real damage. The estimate is far above the $11.37 billion in crypto-related losses reported to the FBI and suggests digital-asset fraud accounted for more than half of all scam and cybercrime losses last year.
How the estimate was calculated
The CFA based its analysis on FBI figures showing that reported crypto scam losses rose 22% from 2024 to $11.37 billion in 2025. To estimate the likely total, it applied a 7.1x multiplier drawn from a 2017 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey, which found that only 14% of fraud victims report incidents to law enforcement. The group described that approach as conservative.
Using the same method across all scam categories, the CFA estimated that Americans lose about $148.2 billion a year to online scams. The FBI’s complaint center recorded 1,008,597 complaints and $20.9 billion in reported losses overall, a 26% increase from the previous year. Scaled by the CFA’s methodology, that total comes to roughly $1,009 per household.
Investment fraud dominates reported losses
Crypto-related investment fraud was the largest single category in the report. The FBI logged $8.6 billion in reported investment fraud losses tied to crypto, and the CFA’s estimate lifts that figure to $61.4 billion. That category was up 32% from 2024.
The report also highlighted the age profile of victims. Americans over 60 accounted for $4.4 billion in reported crypto fraud losses alone, nearly 40% of the total reported to the FBI.
The FBI separately tracked AI-enabled crime for the first time in 2025. It recorded 22,364 complaints in that category, with reported losses of $893 million.
Enforcement and seizure efforts
The figures include cases involving both domestic and international fraud operations. The FBI said its Operation Level Up program, which contacts people before they send money, has notified 8,000 victims and helped prevent $500 million in losses, including $225.9 million last year.
Authorities have also pursued higher-profile criminal and forfeiture cases. An Oklahoma man was sentenced last year to five years in prison over a $9.4 million crypto Ponzi scheme. In separate actions targeting overseas fraud networks, a scam center task force seized about $25 million connected to fraudulent crypto investment platforms and online romance schemes.
U.S. prosecutors have also seized more than $25 million in cryptocurrency tied to international scams that allegedly defrauded thousands of victims in the United States and Canada. In a related case, the Justice Department moved to forfeit Bitcoin from Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi.
Pressure on tech platforms
Beyond law enforcement, the CFA’s report points to online platforms as a major part of the scam ecosystem. The organization has sued Meta over scam advertising and named Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp as the platforms most associated with scams. The report says proposals under discussion include measures to block fraudulent or deceptive advertising and increase accountability for tech companies.
The CFA’s estimates rely on a reporting-rate adjustment rather than direct loss tallies, so the larger totals remain projections rather than confirmed sums. Even so, the report presents crypto fraud as the central driver of scam losses in the US, with reported FBI data and enforcement actions pointing to a problem that spans age groups, platforms and cross-border criminal networks.
Source: decrypt.co