Better Business Bureau study shows Cryptocurrency ripe for fraud, financial loss

Nashville, TN – Cryptocurrency is the hot new trend in investing, and much is still not understood about this buzzy, volatile digital payment system that does not rely on banks to verify transactions. This has created a fertile environment for scams, according to a new in-depth investigative study by Better Business Bureau® (BBB®), which states: “A virtual tug of war exists between the legitimate and fraudulent use of cryptocurrency.”

The study – Cryptocurrency scams: BBB study finds lack of regulation and consumer education results in dramatic increase in fraud and financial losses – examines the many facets of cryptocurrency and the variety of ways criminals are exploiting the cryptocurrency market to steal from investors and victims of common scams. Read the full study here.

Cryptocurrency is a form of digital money whereby encryption technology can enable anyone anywhere to send and receive payments. It does not exist in a physical form such as paper money, but as lines of computer code, supported by a decentralized computer system known as blockchain and stored in a “crypto wallet.” Bitcoin, developed in 2009, is the most popular form of cryptocurrency, available for purchase at tens of thousands of Bitcoin ATMs and increasingly accepted as payment in certain retail transactions.
 
Ethereum is the second most common cryptocurrency and is centrally involved in the increasingly popular non-fungible tokens (NFTs), digital assets such as pictures…