U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren highlighted the risks of cryptocurrency scams targeting senior Americans, and cybersecurity experts supported her bill on digital assets to prevent future scams.
in the recent senate hearingWarren outlined a significant increase in cryptocurrency scams targeting seniors in the United States.
“Cryptocurrency investment scams targeting seniors increased by 350% last year. This is the largest jump of any age group. This brings the total losses to cryptocurrency scams by seniors to $1 billion. It reached more than a dollar.”
Meanwhile, during the hearing, Steve Wiseman, a prominent fraud and cybersecurity expert who Warren described, said that unlike credit card fraud, which can be quickly identified, stopped, and tracked, cryptocurrencies have a huge He emphasized that there are challenges.
He reiterated that once cryptocurrencies go through a mixer, they become much harder to track.
“Once you’re in the mixer, you’re in trouble. There may be legitimate privacy concerns that people have, but they don’t extend to scammers.”
Wiseman expressed support for Warren’s Digital Assets Anti-Money Laundering Act, which would ensure that digital assets are subject to the same anti-money laundering (AML) laws as traditional fiat currency.
“Your bill has been long overdue, and rightly so,” Wiseman asserted.
Related: Explanation of identity theft fraud in cryptocurrencies
This follows recent reports showing a significant increase in cryptocurrency hacks and scams in recent quarters compared to the same quarter last year.
Blockchain security company Immunefi reported a 153% spike in attack incidents targeting cryptocurrencies and Web3 projects from July to September 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. The most recent quarter resulted in a loss of approximately $686 million.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren recently revealed that nine more US senators are publicly supporting the Digital Assets Money Laundering Prevention Act.
Notably, Gary Peters, a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Dick Durbin, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, are among those supporting the initiative.
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