On a balmy evening in 2023 on the east coast of Spain, Olivier Acuña sat at his computer to transfer his life savings to another cryptocurrency wallet, as he had done hundreds of times before.

“Sending crypto always induces anxiety,” Acuña told CoinDesk. This rang painfully true that night.

As soon as Acuña hit send, it was over: $400,000 worth of crypto — all his money — was gone, pilfered by an anonymous phishing scammer. A piercing noise rang in Acuña’s ears, his temperature rose and his fists clenched.

Acuña’s loss demonstrates that no one is immune to crypto hacks. He’s a seven-year crypto industry veteran, someone who grasps the need for wariness given the dangers that lurk around blockchains. Before that, he was a journalist for decades, where staying alert was a must as he faced violent drug cartels in Mexico and torture in prison.

And yet he became one of the many victims of crypto scams. In 2023, U.S. officials received 69,000 reports of crypto theft totaling more than $5.6 billion.

Getting that money back can be hard. If your normal bank account gets breached, insurance will almost certainly cover your losses. But there’s no highly regulated system like that in crypto, which is famously and quit

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Author: Oliver Knight