Pig butchering crypto scams soar 40% in one year, Chainalysis says

High-yield investment scams as well as pig butchering scams received the most crypto among scam sub-classes, at 50.2% and 33.2% respectively, a study shows.

Long-term scams, called pig butchering, where victims are slowly tricked into making bigger crypto payments, jumped 40% year-over-year. These scams, mostly run from big fraud hubs in Southeast Asia, have spread to other areas recently.

According to data compiled by blockchain forensic firm Chainalysis, pig butchering scammers have evolved over the past year to diversify their business model beyond the “long con” of scams to “quicker turnaround employment or work-from-home scams that typically yield smaller victim deposits.”

Overall, in 2024, on-chain data shows growth in five scam types: pig butchering, address poisoning, crypto drainers, livestream scams, and blackmail/sextortion. And yet, the total number of deposits to pig butchering scams shot up by nearly 210% in 2024. At the same time. the average deposit per victim dropped by 55%, Chainalysis notes.

“The combination of lower payment amounts and increased deposits could indicate a change in strategy for pig butchering scams. Scammers could be spending less time priming targets, and therefore, receiving smaller payments, in exchange for targeting more victims.”

Chainalysis

Other types of scams also grew significantly in 2024. Crypto drainers, for example, saw a 170% increase in revenue, with the number of deposits rising 75%. Address poisoning scams, which involve targeting users with “higher than average wallet balances,” surged by an astonishing 15,000% due to a major attack in May, the report reads.

Chainalysis also noted that Huione Guarantee, an online peer-to-peer platform linked to Huione Group, has processed $70 billion in crypto transactions since 2021 and is believed to play a major role in supporting scams like pig butchering.