News hardware Here is the positive effect of the fall of Bitcoin and other cryptos
Published on 08/21/2022 at 17:35
For the past few months, Bitcoin has been sinking the trend of the crypto market downwards. In this usual bearish cycle, the context is trying for some, only it does not necessarily bring only bad news.
The rise of Bitcoin has attracted crypto scams
The fall in value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has not only had adverse effects. Over the past two years, the explosion in the price of cryptocurrencies has attracted a lot of malicious intent.
Increasingly democratized, these cryptographic virtual currencies have been the subject of massive adoption, attracting new followers who do not necessarily master the security uses linked to the blockchain. Thus, although several beginners have managed to navigate between the sharks, some have left their cryptos there by compromising their wallet.
If amateurs have been the target of phishing and other amateur ransomware, some more confirmed followers in the crypto sector have also been victims of more elaborate operating methods, such as network infrastructure hacks. The recent hack of Solana wallets testifies to this.
In another register, with the effervescence of the field, several cryptocurrencies and other tokens have also promised mountains and wonders to their investors with the aim of extracting money without carrying out the initial project. More commonly known as Exit Scam, these scams are also thriving in a rising crypto trend.
Therefore, in addition to the vulnerability of certain users and organizations, it is clear that the sector was a target of choice, especially since it very quickly became synonymous with staggering sums.
So, the reason seems obvious: scams go hand in hand with the bullrun (crypto bull market). It is important to specify that this logic is found in almost any growth sector.
The bear market (crypto bear market) plays against the scammers
In recent months, the trend of scams in the cryptocurrency sector seems to be on the decline. Good news since cryptos had become a prime target for web3 scammers.
As the crypto market has entered its bear market, scams are less attractive to hackers. Since the beginning of the year, the prices of all cryptos have been in the grip of a sharp drop and investors are not the only ones to jump ship.
Indeed, the bearmarket does not only bring bad news since following this drop, even the scammers seem to no longer be interested in the sector.
In a study conducted by Chainalysis, we learn that the sector experienced fewer scams during the year 2022.
Revenue from crypto scammers down
Following the bursting of the speculative bubble, the crypto sector recorded a significant drop in transactions. Thus, scammers are much less profitable.
According to Chainalysis, the scammers reportedly made $1.6 billion in revenue, down 65% from the previous year. By 2021, they had recorded no less than $5 billion.
In addition to the decline in illicit transactions and the hardening of several followers, Chainalysis believes that these figures can also be explained with the overall decline in value. Indeed, the gains of the scammers were higher when Bitcoin was around €60,000. In this perspective, to obtain the same ransom, a hacker must now extort 3.
Chainalysis
This consolation prize allows investors to be at least reassured during this bearmarket. The data also demonstrates the propensity of market players to be increasingly suspicious of malicious attempts of any kind. The bear market backdrop isn’t just marred by bad news – this bearish trend is also cleaning up and optimizing the technology to become more reassuring to future users.