Scams have become more prominent in the crypto industry because scammers believe that they’re untraceable when they operate on the blockchain. Over the years, different sectors have seen a rise in the number of scams but a new survey has focused on the investors who lose money to these crypto scams and have found that the most tech-savvy generation is the worse hit.
Gen Z Have Lost The Most To Scammers
A new report from Kaspersky has revealed that Gen Z (those born in the late 1990s to early 2000s) are the most exploited group when it comes to crypto scams. In the survey which included 2,000 American respondents, 24% admitted that they invested in the crypto market and 47% of individuals aged 18-24 revealed that they have had their cryptocurrencies stolen at one point.
This is a stark difference from the 8% of older investors, aged 55 and above, who said they had had their crypto stolen at some point. However, it is important to note that young people are more likely to invest in crypto, thus increasing their exposure to these scams.
It is evident from the survey findings which showed that 36% of the respondents who fall in the 25-44 age range said they owned crypto assets. Meanwhile, only 10% of all respondents aged 55 and above said they invested in the crypto industry.
Finally, around 33% of all respondents who have invested in crypto assets revealed that they have had their crypto stolen at some point. Furthermore, one-third of the respondents also revealed they fell for scam websites and investment scams, in some cases leading to identity theft and their payment details being compromised.
Total market cap resting above $1 trillion | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on TradingView.com
How Crypto Investors Are Protecting Their Assets
The Kaspersky survey went on further to find out how these investors were storing their cryptocurrencies. Out of the 47% who said they had invested in crypto assets, 29% said they wrote down their seed phrases and private keys on paper and 34% revealed they used two-factor authentication (2FA) to protect exchange accounts.
25% said they stored seed phrases/private keys on password management solutions, 18% said it was in plain text on their phone or PC, 18% said it was in an archive with a password on their phone or PC, and 17% used third-party software.
Below is a visual representation of Kaspersky’s findings which show how investors are securing (or not securing) their cryptocurrencies.
Almost half of crypto investors have fallen victim to scam | Source: Kaspersky
Marc Rivero, a Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team advised investors to “employ any extra security measures that are available to them, such as multi-factor authentication, and should use strong, unique passwords across all accounts.”
