| Crypto frauds on the increase in the UK Philippa Aylmer reported this week on the findings of Action Fraud Fund, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime.
According to Action Fraud Fund, between the start of 2021 and mid-October, just over GBP146,000 had been lost to cryptocurrency fraud, with the squid game token showing up as one of the highest profile scams in recent months. Squid’s developers made off with around USD3.3 million (GBP2.48 million), according to technology website Gizmodo.
Fraud of this type is on the rise, up almost a third more than was lost throughout the whole of 2020. And over half of crypto fraud victims were aged 18 – 45 years old, with 18 to 35 year olds accounting for the highest percentage of reports (11 per cent) and the average loss per victim was around GBP20,500.
The relative youth of those investing in crypto shows their appetite for the fast-growing asset
class. Wealth Adviser and its sister publication ETF Express have written extensively on the need for the UK regulatory authorities to allow UK investors to invest, like their continental European counterparts, in regulated crypto ETPs.
Watch our thematic panel, filmed with Asset TV, to see HANetf’s Hector McNeil express his views on the need for regulated crypto ETPs to be allowed in the UK.
Our In My Opinion this week comes from GAM’s Julian Howard who draws extensively on movies to explain his views on what investors need to do in what he calls ‘sideways markets’.
Beverly Chandler, managing editor, Wealth Adviser
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