By Mark Hays

Last week, the FBI reported that online crypto crime continues to surge and is taking a bigger bite out of people’s pockets than ever. Its annual report on internet based financial crime found that people lost $21 billion to online financial crime in 2025, a 26 percent increase from last year. And, crypto is at the center of this crime wave.

The report analyzes data on financial crime from hundreds of thousands of complaints, and is a key measure of the scope and scale of online financial crime in the United States. By every measure, and every year since 2020 there have been multi-billion dollar increases in losses due to online financial crime. 

Crypto criminals steal billions

Over half of these losses…