The cryptos industry, formerly synonymous with financial innovation, today becomes a privileged playground for ever more sophisticated scams. While 2024 has already been marked by an explosion of digital fraud, Chainalysis is sounding the alarm: 2025 may well be the most lucrative year in history for cybercriminals. Artificial intelligence (AI), formerly perceived as an asset to strengthen security, now becomes a formidable weapon in the service of fraudsters. Falsification of identities, vocal usurpation, automation of psychological manipulations … The new strategies of the crooks repel the limits of the possible.
AI, engine of an explosion of scams in 2025
According to Chainalysis, the crops linked to cryptos generated about $ 9.9 billion in 2024. But this figure, already colossal, could cross the $ 12 billion mark during this year 2025. The main reason is the boom Rapid of generative artificial intelligence, which facilitates the creation of increasingly realistic and difficult to detect scams.
Elad Fouks, manager of fraud products at Chainalysis, explain that “generative AI now makes it possible to create fully fictitious identities, which makes KYC controls obsolete and multiplies large -scale attacks”. Scholars can thus usurp influential personalities, imitate human voices perfectly or write texts of disturbing credibility. These technological advances offer them an unprecedented means of bypassing security measures and trapping the most informed investors.
If the false performance promises and the “Pig Butchering” type stratages remain the most used methods, a mutation takes place. Now, crooks are no longer satisfied with mass scams, but develop ultra-targeted scams, and psychologically manipulate their victims with surgical precision.
A crime industry organized in full expansion
Beyond technological advances, it is the industrialization of fraud that worries the experts most. Contrary to popular belief, these scams are no longer the work of isolated individuals, but real criminal organizations, structured as businesses.
Platforms like Huione Guaranrae offer, for example, simplified access to legitimate services, but also to a complete infrastructure to orchestrate fraud. These clandestine marketplaces allow Cybercriminals to buy scam kits Loans to employment, to hire specialized developers or even to outsource certain operations to fraudulent “call centers”.
Such a model, based on delegation and professionalization, considerably increases the effectiveness of scams. Thus, the victims fall into ever more credible traps, with deceptive marketing supports, fake trading interfaces and fraudulent customer service, intended to extend the illusion as long as possible.
The stakes are high: if no effective preventive measure is implemented, the repercussions on investors' confidence could be devastating. Faced with this growing threat, regulators and exchange platforms are under pressure. Some are already considering drastic strengthening of verification protocols and stricter regulation of AI tools applied to financial transactions. The question remains: Will the crypto sector be able to adapt to this new wave of scams or will it sink into an irreversible crisis of confidence?
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