As the global downturn continues, the crypto scam revenue for 2022 also dropped 65 per cent at $1.6 billion this year, lower than where it was through the end of July in 2021.
Since January 2022, scam revenue has fallen more or less in line with Bitcoin pricing, reports Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis.
"It is not just scam revenue falling -- the cumulative number of individual transfers to scams so far in 2022 is the lowest it has been in the past four years," the report mentioned.
One reason for this could be that with asset prices falling, cryptocurrency scams are less enticing to potential victims.
The scam revenue is often driven by large outliers, such as PlusToken, which netted over $2 billion from victims in 2019, or Finiko, which netted over $1.5 billion in 2021.
The biggest scam of 2022 so far has netted $273 million worth of cryptocurrency, just 24 per cent of Finiko's revenue through the end of July in 2021.
However, it's possible "an outlier could emerge or be identified before the end of the year and reverse the trend of declining scam revenue that we currently see".