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According to the head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the UK legal system braces for a barrage of cryptocurrency scams. Max Hill, director of public prosecutions at the CPS, expects a rise in the numbers of cases involving cryptocurrency. On which the CPS had to make a charging decision.
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Counteract on Cryptocurrency Scams
There has long been evidence that the cryptocurrency market was a breeding ground for scammers. Research published last year by academics at the University of Technology Sydney and the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga found boiler room-style scams in crypto markets are rife, and generate millions of dollars of suspicious trading volume each month.
There are a total of 355 incidents of price manipulation across several cryptocurrency exchanges over a period of just seven months. $350m (£267m) worth of suspicious trading activity was linked to “pump and dump” scams that reaped an estimated profit of $6m for organizers.
Anirudh Dhawan, one of the paper’s authors, said that the level of price manipulation in cryptocurrency is unprecedented in modern markets.
“If you compare the scale of manipulation to traditional equity markets, it’s exponentially higher.”
Victims lost an estimated £113m ($156.3m) last year to criminals and cold-callers promoting cryptocurrency investment scams.
Bitcoin Price Surge
Bitcoin (BTC-USD), the first digital currency, is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies that has rallied more than 400% over the last six months. Acceptance and the growing support from institutional investors and major companies like Tesla, Square, and JPMorgan have made it more valuable than before. Investment by these companies is over billions in Bitcoin. Moreover, Visa (V) has said it will allow the use of the cryptocurrency USDC to settle transactions on its payment network.