According to experts, upon closer inspection, any stock exchange is considered doubtful. The cryptocurrency market significantly expanded last year, attracting those who want to make quick money due to the growth of bitcoin rate to tens of thousands of dollars.



However, experts warn that getting rich in the crypto market is even more challenging than on the stock exchange, as fluctuations in stock prices by hundreds of percent are rare on the stock exchange but routine in the crypto market. It is impossible to build a reliable investment strategy for 2-3 years as cаsinos are the only ones guaranteed to profit from cryptocurrencies.

There are over 450 crypto exchanges in operation globally, differing in transaction volumes. Exchanges are based solely on trust or greed, and there is no one to complain to in case of issues. Those who aim to get rich quickly spend money on promising or well-known cryptos; however, they forget that the currency is no longer theirs once it enters the site.

The lack of objective mechanisms to determine if an exchange is "honest" makes it easy for fraudsters to create fake exchanges. Tokens purchased with real money can disappear through various tools, such as investing in new promising currencies or the exchange itself. Reports of such incidents are increasing every year, making even the most pessimistic players believe that any crypto-exchange will eventually burst. For instance, BitKRX, a notorious fake crypto exchange, was able to attract investors by resembling a legitimate financial trading platform called Korea Exchange, leading customers to lose their money.

Two people behind Komid, a South Korean exchange that scammed investors since its inception, were arrested by authorities. They lured customers into cryptocurrencies and spread false information about token listings. Coinbit, the third largest South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, was also seized by the police on account of 99% of its transaction volume being reportedly faked to deceive customers. Another joint examination in the Netherlands and the UK resulted in the arrest of six individuals for scamming more than 4,000 victims in 12 countries out of an estimated $28 million in crypto.

As the price of cryptocurrencies increases, so does the number of people who want to earn funds in this area, and the frequency of crypto scams is increasing as well. According to Kaspersky Lab, fraudsters will be able to deceive customers twice as much as last year, with reports of fraudulent exchanges becoming a constant newsbreak. Wholesale closure of cryptocurrency exchanges has begun, with the easiest way for a crypto exchange to shut down being to claim a "hacker attack" and keep clients' money.

In the case of Livecoin, users' wallets were blocked without warning before reports of a hacker attack on the exchange. The same thing happened with HitBTC, with users reporting that their wallets were blocked for withdrawal while there was inexplicable dynamics of cryptocurrency rates and a lack of information from the exchange administration. In April, Thodex, the second largest crypto exchange in Turkey, closed after blocking wallets, citing abnormal fluctuations in the accounts. The founder of the exchange, Faruk Fatih Ozer, escaped to Albania with two billion dollars of clients.

Currently, the US authorities are auditing the largest crypto exchange Binance, and it is possible that this message will be followed by other messages about the closure of trading floors.

Is stealing cryptocurrency considered a scam, and if so, in which countries? Cryptocurrency is not categorized as money or securities, and it is not defined explicitly in the law. As such, those who have their tokens stolen have no obligation to get them back, unlike in banking systems. Additionally, some exchanges are used for laundering funds.