Cryptocurrencies and digital assets have continued to gain widespread acceptance from both retail and institutional investors. As part of this continued growth, there has been an unfortunate series of ongoing and increasingly sophisticated frauds, Ponzi schemes, and hacks that have cost investors billions of dollars. Since the publication of the original Cryptocurrency and Digital Asset Fraud Casebook, conservative estimates indicate that there have been thousands of new digital asset fraud cases that have contributed to billions in broadening losses in space. Beyond the digital asset space, cryptocurrency-related scams also continue to present increasingly meaningful threats to traditional finance institutions, the global economy, and national security, as well.
These new challenges, combined with the ongoing evolving regulatory environment for digital assets, create an environment where there is a continued need for the up-to-date information and analysis of real-world case studies. It includes an up-to-date analysis of recent case studies in cryptocurrency and digital asset fraud alongside an analysis of recent decentralized finance (DeFi) hacks, smart contract attacks, and rug pulls. This book reviews the impact of digital asset bankruptcies, the FTX fraud, and the industry-wide post-FTX fallout on the growth of cryptocurrency fraud. It also examines the explosive growth of cryptocurrency romance scams, pig butchering, and related organized crime money laundering efforts and includes a related exclusive case study. Offering an in-depth examination of digital asset frauds in the gaming, metaverse, and NFT spaces, it also covers Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) fraud, smart contract attacks, dApp scams, crypto asset manager investment fraud, mining fraud, honeypots, meme coins, and artificial intelligence-based digital asset fraud. Leveraging the author’s experience analyzing and implementing compliance and operations best practices with a variety of cryptocurrency and digital asset projects and consulting with international regulators on blockchain and digital asset policy, this book will be of interest to those working throughout the cryptocurrency and digital asset space including Web 3.0 builders and service providers including lawyers, auditors, blockchain infrastructure, regulators, governments, retail investors, and institutional investors.