{"id":75692,"date":"2026-07-21T05:04:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T05:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/americans-lost-11-billion-to-crypto-scams-last-year-most-of-it-ended-at-a-gas-station\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T05:04:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T05:04:40","slug":"americans-lost-11-billion-to-crypto-scams-last-year-most-of-it-ended-at-a-gas-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/americans-lost-11-billion-to-crypto-scams-last-year-most-of-it-ended-at-a-gas-station\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans Lost $11 Billion to Crypto Scams Last Year. Most of It Ended at a Gas Station"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>(Originally posted on : Bitcoin News )<\/b><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"@container mb-[25px] rounded-sm overflow-clip py-0.5 pr-0.5 pl-2.5 bg-success-100\">\n<div class=\"flex flex-col gap-m overflow-clip rounded-[6px] !bg-success-10 p-3 @[420px]:p-m\">\n<h2 class=\"m-0 flex items-center gap-s text-[19px] !text-[#1c1c1c] md:text-[20px]\"><svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"16\" height=\"10\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 10\" fill=\"none\" class=\"shrink-0 text-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><path d=\"M1 1.5h14\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-width=\"2.5\" stroke-linecap=\"round\"\/><path d=\"M1 8.5h10\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-width=\"2.5\" stroke-linecap=\"round\"\/><\/svg><span>Key Takeaways<\/span><\/h2>\n<ul class=\"m-0 flex list-none flex-col gap-m pl-0\">\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">FBI logged 181,565 crypto complaints and $11.366B in 2025 losses, topping 50% of IC3 fraud.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">FBI said kiosk scams hit $389M in 2025, pushing Spokane and DC toward tougher oversight.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">Operation Level Up prevented $225.9M in 2025 as Bitcoin ATM scrutiny keeps expanding.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Americans reported more than $11.366 billion in <span>cryptocurrency<\/span> losses in 2025, according to the FBI\u2019s Internet Crime Complaint Center, and the agency logged 181,565 crypto-related complaints overall. A smaller slice of that damage ran through <span>crypto<\/span> kiosks: 13,460 complaints tied to the machines and $389 million lost, with people 60 and older accounting for about two-thirds of the total. \u201cBy the time a victim is at a kiosk, they are already deep in the scammer\u2019s trance,\u201d said CertiK\u2019s Stefan Muehlbauer, as cities and regulators started treating the kiosks less like convenience tech and more like a public-safety problem. Spokane, Washington, moved to ban all <span>crypto<\/span> ATMs, while Washington, DC\u2019s attorney general sued Athena <span>Bitcoin<\/span> over allegations that 93% of its early DC transactions were fraud.<\/p>\n<h2>A record year for crypto fraud, and a familiar pattern<\/h2>\n<p>The new number to sit with is this: Americans reported losing more than $11.366 billion to crypto-related scams in 2025. The figure comes from the FBI\u2019s Internet Crime Complaint Center, which said the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theblock.co\/post\/397134\/fbi-says-crypto-related-fraud-losses-hit-record-11-4-billion-in-2025-with-seniors-bearing-the-brunt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">IC3 2025 Annual Report<\/a> was released on April 6, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The same report logged 181,565 cryptocurrency-related complaints, and said <span>crypto<\/span> losses made up more than half of the $20.877 billion in total internet-crime losses IC3 tracked in 2025. That is the first time the bureau\u2019s reported losses cleared $20 billion, a threshold that makes the category harder to dismiss as a niche problem.<\/p>\n<h2>Investment scams dwarf the kiosk problem<\/h2>\n<p>It is tempting to picture the scam as a shady machine in the corner of a convenience store, but the largest line item was <span>crypto<\/span> investment fraud: $7.2 to $7.228 billion across roughly 61,559 complaints, up 25% from 2024. That is where a lot of the money goes missing, often after weeks of grooming and persuasion.<\/p>\n<p>Still, kiosks are becoming their own story. IC3 counted 13,460 kiosk-related complaints in 2025, tied to $389 million in losses, and the losses jumped 58% year over year, per the FBI\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ic3.gov\/PSA\/2026\/PSA260515-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">kiosk complaint data<\/a>. In that subset, victims 60 and older accounted for $257.4 million across 6,188 complaints, roughly two-thirds of the category\u2019s losses.<\/p>\n<h2>When cities and attorneys general step in<\/h2>\n<p>Some local governments have decided the machines are not worth the headaches. Spokane, Washington, became the largest municipality in the U.S. to ban all <span>crypto<\/span> ATMs inside city limits after a unanimous vote, with the ban implemented in June 2025. Detective Tim Schwering summed up what pushed it forward: \u201cCases started flowing my way where people were getting ripped off by <span>cryptocurrency<\/span> machines.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Spokane Valley followed with its own unanimous ban in May 2026, citing at least 10 documented cases of significant financial loss and 1 confirmed suicide linked to kiosk-related scams. Meanwhile in Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued Athena <span>Bitcoin<\/span> Inc. on September 8, 2025, alleging 93% of deposits at the company\u2019s 7 local <span>Bitcoin<\/span> ATMs were scam-driven in its first 5 months operating, plus undisclosed fees up to 26% and refusals to refund victims, per <a href=\"https:\/\/oag.dc.gov\/release\/attorney-general-schwalb-sues-crypto-atm-operator\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the lawsuit announcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>The prevention work, and the sheer footprint of the machines<\/h2>\n<p>The FBI is also leaning into outreach. Operation Level Up notified 3,780 potential victims in 2025 and is credited with preventing an estimated $225.9 million in losses that year, part of more than $500 million prevented since the program launched in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>That effort has to scale across a very American reality: as of mid-2025, the U.S. hosted roughly 30,433 <span>Bitcoin<\/span> ATMs, and a CNBC report in January 2026 put about 80% of the world\u2019s <span>bitcoin<\/span> teller machines on U.S. soil.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/americans-lost-11-billion-to-crypto-scams-last-year-most-of-it-ended-at-a-gas-station-49201\/\">Source link <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Originally posted on : Bitcoin News ) Key Takeaways FBI logged 181,565 crypto complaints and $11.366B in 2025 losses, topping 50% of IC3 fraud. FBI said kiosk scams hit $389M in 2025, pushing Spokane and DC toward tougher oversight. Operation Level Up prevented $225.9M in 2025 as Bitcoin ATM scrutiny keeps expanding. Americans reported more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":75693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75692"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}