Billions stolen in Bitcoin scams

Sadly this is probably just a taste of what's going to happen in coming years with crypto in general.

The FBI’s latest annual report reveals a sharp rise in Bitcoin-related fraud, with U.S. victims losing $9.3 billion in 2024 — a 66% increase from the previous year.

Total cybercrime losses reached $16.6 billion across more than 859,000 complaints filed to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)...

Of particular concern is the impact on older Americans. Victims aged 60 and above reported 33,369 Bitcoin-related fraud cases, amounting to more than $2.8 billion in losses.

The average loss per senior victim was $83,000 — more than four times higher than the average across all cybercrime. - BiTBO

Corporate media misrepresented the facts on crime

To say the very least. Of course "if it bleeds it leads" has always been central to news outlets. But recently it's taken on undeniable elements of a deliberate effort to influence voter behavior, on behalf of the Party of Trump. This is the most comprehensive, yet relatively concise, thing I've seen online regarding corporate media's appalling behavior, here.

Fearmongering about crime in Democratic states and cities was certainly central to the Republican Party’s midterm elections strategy, although at this point it is hard to say how effective it was...

What is certain is that the Republican obsession with crime received major attention in the media, and the subject was not always handled with the proper context, often tipping the balance to the conservative partisan narrative...

Of course, the realities of crime data never stopped Republicans from painting Democrats as soft on crime, or blaming crime spikes—real or imaginary—on Democratic policies. In 2022, rather than combating such distortions, various media helped to amplify a simplistic depiction, becoming de facto propaganda arms for the Republican campaigns. - FAIR