Analysts at Chainalysis announced that the amount of assets that cryptocurrency scammers and similar criminals were able to get in the first half of 2023 decreased by 65% ​​compared to January-June 2022.

Among cryptocurrency crimes, it was fraud that showed the largest decrease in profits – such attackers received 77% less money than in the first half of last year. If in the first half of 2022 crypto scammers earned about $3.3 billion, then in 2023 the figure hardly exceeded $1 billion.

“Usually, an increase in the value of cryptocurrencies leads to an increase in the number of cases and the monetary volume of fraud. Many people are trying to invest in a growing market and are not always able to distinguish fraudulent schemes from legitimate ones. However, in 2023, we are seeing a massive decline in crypto scammers’ income, which breaks the long-term trend,” Chainalysis said in a report.

However, ransomware hackers received significantly more funds than in the first half of 2022. The amount of assets stolen by them is $175.8 million more than in the same period last year.

“When we published our 2022 annual report, we were pleasantly surprised by the decline in ransomware creators’ income. However, in 2023 we see an increase in these illegal proceeds. Hackers are attacking big rich companies and seem to have regained their profits after a bad 2022,” analysts write.

Recently, ImmuneFi reported that the number of attacks on cryptocurrency projects increased in 2023, but the total amount of stolen funds turned out to be much lower.