According to the Pittsburgh FBI Field Office, more than $5.6 billion in losses occurred in 2023 in connection to cryptocurrency.

That figure is just one highlight of the first FBI Cryptocurrency Fraud Report, which found in 2023, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received more than 69,000 complaints from the public regarding financial fraud involving cryptocurrency.

According to the FBI, some ways to protect yourself from cryptocurrency fraud is to never give personally identifying information to anyone without verifying the person is who they say they are and to be on the lookout for domain or website names that impersonate legitimate financial institutions, especially cryptocurrency exchanges.

The full FBI report can be found online at www.ic3.gov/Media/PDF/AnnualReport/2023_IC3CryptocurrencyReport.pdf.