"Surge in New Scams as Pig Butchering Dominates"

According to security researchers at Chainalysis, online fraudsters are rapidly adapting their activities to run more impactful scams of shorter duration.  The researchers noted that online scams are one of the largest areas of illegal activity that they monitor, with billions of dollars worth of crypto flowing to illicit accounts in the year to date (YTD).  The researchers found that over two-fifths (43%) of these "inflows" YTD have gone to wallets that only became active this year, "suggesting a surge in new scams." The next highest year, 2022, saw only 30% of scam inflows go to wallets newly active that year.  The average number of days that scams are active is also decreasing.  In 2024 YTD it stands at 42, down from 271 in 2020.  The researchers said that this trend is consistent with the continued pivot of scammers from elaborate Ponzi schemes that cast a wide net to more targeted campaigns like pig butchering or address poisoning, driven in part by increasing enforcement efforts and stablecoin issuers blacklisting scam addresses.  The researchers noted that pig butchering, where victims are lured into a relationship by dating site scammers and then tricked into making fake investments, remains one of the most lucrative cybercrime types for fraudsters.  

Infosecurity Magazine reports: "Surge in New Scams as Pig Butchering Dominates"