2021 was another bull market for cryptocurrencies. Unsurprisingly, billions of dollars flowing into an unregulated market attracted plenty of scammers too.
Besides the risks of theft from platforms and crypto wallets, 2021 saw a rise in DeFi scams and theft events. While DeFi in theory provides protection against some risks, it also introduces new and complex ones, and hundreds of millions of dollars were stolen from DeFi platforms that year. 71 percent of major hacks in 2021 were on DeFi platforms.
This report is based on a survey of about 2,500 users of walletrecovery.info, which has helped customers recover their cryptocurrency wallets since 2017. We cannot help victims of crypto scams recover their funds. We published these findings to improve awareness of the common scams in this space and to give people something concrete to check their own situation against.
Key findings
- Fake investment platforms were the most common scam, at 32 percent, with Bitcoin the most common asset stolen, at 66 percent. Fake platforms and their operators use sophisticated techniques: stealing the identities of legitimate financial professionals, catfishing romance scams, and elaborate fake trading and gambling platforms.
- 57 percent of victims filed a report with law enforcement. 69 percent did not get a personal response, and only 8 percent felt that law enforcement took their case seriously. None got their crypto assets back.
- 60 percent of victims blame insufficient education for falling for the scam. 19 percent blame their own poor security practices, and 7 percent blame a crypto service provider.
- Only about 10 percent of victims thought crypto institutions were doing a good job of educating customers about scams.
- The common signals repeat: unrealistic returns, high-pressure tactics, sales pitches arriving over Telegram, no mention of fees, and no verifiable reputation.
- Fake "scam recovery" services are abundant and equally sophisticated, including operators who send funds stolen from other victims in order to collect a fee before the bank transfer bounces.
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A note on the date
This survey was conducted and published in 2021 and the figures above are from that year. The structural patterns it documents have held up well, which is why the report is still here, but the numbers are now historical. For current figures, see the 2025 crypto scam report on walletrecovery.info.
What to do with this
If you are trying to work out whether something in front of you right now is real, the findings above are a checklist, and a written assessment is a service I offer. If you want the scam material taught properly rather than read off a page, it is a standing module in both Crypto 101 and the team bootcamp.
And if money has already gone: no one can reverse a blockchain transaction, and anyone who tells you they can is running the recovery scam described above.