Chainalysis warns that AI-driven crypto scams are surging, with illicit marketplaces fueling fraud through advanced impersonation tools.
Chainalysis, a company that analyzes blockchains, is warning about the growing use of AI in coin scams.
AI-Driven Crypto Scams Surge as Industry Experts Raise Alarms
In its 2025 crypto crime report, the company said that since 2021, sales of AI scam services have brought in 1,900% more money.
“Looks like the escalation is partially part of the Trump administration’s movement to onshore a lot of these sensitive industries around silicon,” Foxley said. “All these Bitcoin miners are using massive amounts of silicon, making massive amounts of units and importing them into the United States.”
She said that those sellers made $18 million last year by selling AI-powered tools that hackers can use to pretend to be someone else or make convincing content that tricks people into investing money they don’t have.
The results back up the worries that experts in the field have made.
Blockchain intelligence company TRM Labs says in its 2025 crypto crime report that financial predators and con artists will use AI a lot more this coming year.
At the same time, people are more excited than ever about how AI will change the crypto sector.
The market worth of all cryptocurrencies connected to AI is now more than $28 billion. Investors have put hundreds of millions of dollars into projects that use both AI and blockchain technology.
The Secret AI market
Chainalysis found that illegal sites like Huione Guarantee helped make AI scam tools more popular.
There are many sellers in these markets who sell generative AI technology that is used in scams.
In the report, one offering stood out because it offered AI “face-changing services” for $200 in cryptocurrency.
This month, Dawid Moczadło, co-founder of AI security company Vidoc, shared a video on X that seemed to show a candidate using this kind of software during an interview.
The UN Security Council says that more than 4,000 North Koreans have gotten into tech jobs in the West by pretending to be someone else.
In addition to getting paid false pay, these workers use their jobs to hack into company computers and steal money.
Because they are being watched more closely, many North Korean agents now use AI scam software from sites like Huione to avoid being caught.
Chainalysis also kept an eye on onchain transactions that connected crypto wallets that bought scam tools to pig butchering schemes. This is a way for scammers to get people to trust them before tricking them into giving cryptocurrency.
In January, a French woman lost $850,000 over a period of several months to con artists who used AI software to pretend to be Brad Pitt.
Chainalysis looked into one case and found that a wallet got money from a pig butchering scam just three days after buying AI software from a Huione seller.
Chainalysis said the quick turnaround shows how quickly scammers can use these tools against their prey.
