African investors may have shared the lowest percentage of cryptocurrency investment scams, which reached $5.9 billion worldwide last year.
But mainland investors were ripped off more through investment gimmicks and giveaways, signaling the risk of a huge appetite to buy into the madness.
Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa were among the leading countries from where scammers using these cheats generated the most revenue per user last year, according to a report by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
Giveaway scams, where fraudsters trick users into sending them their crypto assets with the promise of sending them more in return, were particularly prominent in Kenya and Nigeria, which are also the leaders in crypto adoption on the continent.
South Africans have mostly fallen victim to investment scams, where scammers promote a non-existent investment company that promises big profits, caused by underinformation and misinformation in the sector.
However, various other types of scams in the cryptocurrency industry spared the African population and affected investors in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia, where cryptocurrency adoption levels are highest.
fickle hearts
Romance scams, for example, which defrauded about $15,559 per user last year, and phishing scams that defrauded each investor on average $5,746, occurred primarily in the US, Canada, Europe and Australia.
Africa's top scams (gifts and investment cons) cost victims an average of $1,834 and $995 respectively, while non-fungible token (NFT) fraud lost each user around $462 each.
Chainalysis says that the locations of those who fell victim to crypto scams last year โwere likely due to the location of the scammers themselves, as this will affect their ability to present victims based on their shared language and cultural context.โ
"But the geographic trends in scams also match the geographic trends we've seen in the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem," Chainalysis said.
