New warnings about investing in... CRYPTO

IF you are planning to invest money in 2023, there is an aler t over putting your money in cr ypto companies

UK investors lost £36m in fraud last year relating to the cr ypto firm Binance before it par tnered with Cristiano Ronaldo, police figures have revealed

The figure was revealed following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by InvestingReviews.co.uk, and comes as Binance faces a growing global crackdown from regulators

Binance operates the world’s largest online exchange for cr yptocurrencies, and is used by an estimated 28million users worldwide

The platform matches buyers with sellers and offers wallets to users to store their tokens. In 2017, it began issuing its own currency which can be traded both on the Binance exchange as well as other online platforms

City of London Police say the £36m figure is based on offences repor ted to Action Fraud, the UK’s national repor ting centre for cyber offences, and “captures all repor ts including coin and wallet”

While there is no suggestion that Binance acted inappropriately in the thefts, it’s believed the exchange has unwittingly processed transactions stemming from hacks in the past.

In its defence , the company insists it is building “the most sophisticated cyber forensics team on the planet”

Binance recently returned £260,000 to a US-based romance scam victim whose stolen monies were traced to the exchange , but the company says the decentralised nature of the cr yptocurrency ecosystem makes it impossible for it to implement foolproof safeguards on other platforms

In June , Binance announced a par tnership with Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo. The footballer has agreed to launch a series of NFTs (non fungible tokens) on the Binance platform beginning later this year

Law enforcement, however, remains concerned about the apparent absence of protections for investors. Last year the City watchdog banned Binance from under taking any regulated activity in the UK, insisting it was “not capable” of super vision by regulators and posed a “significant risk to consumers ”

Despite being blacklisted, the Financial Conduct Authority (FC A) doesn’t have the power to stop investors from using Binance .

According to the documents released in response to the FOI request, Binance-related theft accounted for 17% of the overall £204m of cr ypto fraud repor ted to police in 2021, which was almost double the previous year ’ s figure

In total, police said there were 9,288 complaints of cr yptocurrency crime across all platforms and coins with the average victim losing £21,620. According to the figures, Bitcoin scams across all platforms totalled £110m, while frauds involving unspecified cr yptocurrencies