The explosion of rug pulls in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem over the past year helped to propel revenue from crypto scams to $7.7 billion in 2021, according to blockchain data firm Chainalysis. From a report: Per Chainalysis’ 2022 Crypto Crime Report, revenues from crypto scams in 2021 were up 81% on the previous year, with rug pulls accounting for 37% of all crypto scam revenue — up from 1% in 2020. In all, rug pulls — in which developers build a seemingly legitimate crypto project and then abscond with investors’ money — accounted for more than $2.8 billion worth of stolen crypto in 2021. Chainalysis highlighted the fact that code audits — which would catch the vulnerabilities that enable fraudulent DeFi projects to drain their liquidity pools — are not required to list a project on decentralized exchanges (DEXs), hence their prevalence in the DeFi sector.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Crypto Scam Revenue Up 81% in 2021, Hits .7 Billion: Chainalysis