High-tech fraudsters aren’t just targeting elders, law enforcement throughout California is seeing a sharp rise in reports of Gen-Z — or people born from 1997 to 2012 — being preyed upon by cryptocurrency rip-off artists on platforms like Twitch, TikTok and Instagram, officials said Monday.

Crypto scams use the same psychological playbooks and social engineering themes as traditional gift card or cash fraud, but they leverage the mechanics of digital assets to maximize speed and bypass physical safeguards.

In 2025, Americans lost $20.9 billion to internet-based scams, with $11.4 billon of that loss specifically resulting from crypto scams, according to state Attorney General Rob Bonta.