FBI: Americans aged 60 and older reported losing almost $3 billion to crypto fraud last year. In total, Americans reported being scammed out of around $9.3 billion via crypto, out of a total $16.6 billion in total reported Internet crime losses that year.
The 60+ category reported $4.885 billion in total Internet crime-related losses to the FBI, and $2.839 billion of them involved crypto (58%).
While what they say is terrible, I love stats like these. Data rocks!
But I'd add a piece of context. I was guessing 60+ was maybe 10% of US population, but looks like it's closer to 20%.
So that pool is large enough that it's "only" (order of magnitude) around $100 average for that group.
Since most folks didn't lose any to crypto scams, we can guess there were fewer, bigger losses for some individuals.
But I think the order of magnitude of mean loss is useful too.
@pseudonym The full report has some additional data, though not always sliced along crypto/non-crypto lines. For the 60+ demographic, average loss was $83,000 (both crypto and fiat)
I don't doubt you, but I wonder how they got that number? 3, 6, or 19 billion is only ~$10 per every American (~330 million) so I don't see how the "average" loss is $18k.
I was assuming "mean" for average, but maybe a mean, median, mode difference of "average"?
Of those over 60, who lost anything from crypto, perhaps the median loss was 18k?
I'll dig into the paper to satisfy my curiosity. Thanks.
