According to Chainalytics, scammers and fraudsters have increasingly used impersonation scams to steal cryptocurrencies from unsuspecting users over the past year, with the number of cases increasing by 1,400% year-on-year.
Impersonation scams involve fraudsters posing as a trusted person or organization to trick victims into handing over cryptocurrency, passwords, account access, and other sensitive information.
In Chainalytic’s Tuesday Crypto Crime Report he said Scammers operate many tactics in their activities.
“For example, many pig slaughter and investment scams involve elements of spoofing, social engineering, and even technical or financial fraud,” they said.
The average amount stolen through impersonation scams has also increased by more than 600%, which Chainalytic called a “worrying trend.”
One of the more high-profile examples of spoofing scams in 2025 saw fraudsters impersonating cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase in order to steal nearly $16 million from victims.
Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office accused in December, a man claiming that he was behind the fraud. The defendant pleaded not guilty to a number of crimes, including grand theft, money laundering and fraud. The trial date has not yet been set.
Artificial intelligence helps ‘industrialize fraud’
Artificial intelligence has made fraud more effective and is part of the “industrialization of fraud,” Chainalytic said, with fraudsters using sophisticated tools from specialized vendors to defraud more victims.
Chainalytic showed that AI frauds were 4.5 times more profitable and operations were more productive with higher daily revenue and higher transaction volume.
“These metrics suggest both improved operational efficiency and a potentially broader reach of victims. Increased transaction volume indicates that AI is enabling fraudsters to reach and manage more victims at once, a trend consistent with the industrialization of fraud we are tracking,” they said.
“On the other hand, the increased number of scams suggests that AI is also making scams more convincing.”
No silver bullets for preventing cryptocurrency fraud
The enhance in fraud has also resulted in increased law enforcement activity in 2025; However, Chainalytic urged authorities to enhance their focus on harm prevention in 2026 through improved detection tools and wider adoption of real-time fraud detection and mule detection systems.
At the same time, they said that more resources should be devoted to better coordination of cross-border law enforcement and support for institutions and law enforcement in low-capacity jurisdictions.
Related: Global sanctions linked to record data flows to illegal crypto addresses
“There is no silver bullet to combating such an entrenched fraud on an industrial scale, so a multi-pronged response is required to be effective.”
“As we enter 2026, we expect continued convergence in fraud methods as fraudsters adopt multiple tactics and technologies simultaneously,” Chainalytic added.
How to prevent impersonation scams
A group of cryptocurrency security experts told Cointelegraph last year that some of the best ways to combat social engineering scams are to reduce human trust points through actions such as security automation.
It was also recommended to never reveal sensitive data such as passwords or key phrases, as a legitimate company would never ask for them, assuming that every interaction and unsolicited message could be counterfeit, and to always verify authenticity.
Warehouse: When privacy and anti-money laundering regulations collide: the impossible choice of crypto projects
