The Ministry of Justice has recently published new directives ordering prosecutors to reduce their efforts to investigate and plead cryptocurrency crimes. This later dissolves the National Crypto-Monnaies (NCET) of the government in order to prioritize the problems of immigration and supply on the application of cryptocurrencies. While the doj supervises this as a movement to rationalize resources, the threat actors look – and adapt.
Although it is too early to observe its impact on the world of cryptocurrencies, I believe that this decision is more than a bureaucratic mixture – it signals a vacuum of application that cybercriminals will rush to fill.
When regulations relax, fraud follows
Cybercriminals are very adaptable and thrive in moments of regulatory ambiguity. When the criminal application – whether blue collar or white collar crime – becomes limited, threat actors take note and often move their operations outside the lines of conduct. The same goes for the cryptocurrency space.
In the digital economy, especially in the decentralized, unregulated and rapidly evolution of web3 and crypto world, this gray area is a fertile land for identity scams, aerial false, phishing campaigns and spoofed tokens.
Even before this change in policy, scams involving false parts, phishing sites and wallet siphons were already increasing. According to the latest FBI cryptocurrency fraud report, cryptocurrency fraud amounted to $ 5.6 billion in losses, an increase of 45% since 2022.
Now, while the dazzling of the federal examination is moving away from cryptographic space, individuals, exchanges and marks, which are also vulnerable to identity, must prepare for an increase in cryptocurrency fraud. Cybercriminals will continue to exploit DuPE platforms and investors, in particular in spaces where technical complexity, anonymity and lack of regulation already hinder detection and application.
Reactions on the ground: relief or concern?
The administration’s decision to rethink the application of the crypto has already aroused mixed reactions of legal experts, which echo the feeling that this decision could cause a fraudulent activity.
In a statement to the Washington Post, the law professor at the University of Vanderbilt, Yesha Yadav, stressed the importance of the NCET in the disruption of criminal activity through cryptographic space, noting that the government can have more trouble pursuing the “incredibly agile and very opportunistic actors in this space”.
Likewise, the director of the initiative of Kleptocracy and anti-corruption expert, Nate Sibley, stressed that “dangerous American opponents are based on cryptocurrencies to whiten money and escape sanctions”.
However, different air can be heard in industry. The defense group for non -profit defenders DEFI, executive director and legal director of the DEFI education fund, Amanda Tuminelli, said that he had been encouraged to see that the DoJ announced that he was redirecting resources towards the pursuit of bad players who are actually guilty for improper use of technology rather than the manufacturers of our financial future.
On the one hand, experts who seek outside warn that this decision can lead to an increase in cybercrime, while those in the industry maintain that focusing on crimes related to terrorism and drug cartels is a better use of resources. Only time will say which side is correct.
Fraud without friction: AI lowers the bar for bad actors
Complicating questions is the growing use of AI by attackers. With an arsenal of generative AI tools at the fingertips of anyone with an internet connection, fraudsters can now produce scams that go beyond phishing links – these are complete deception ecosystems: false social media accounts, launches of copy tokens, cloned websites and influencers generated by AI pushes scams.
The result? Digital fraud does not only become more widespread, it becomes more credible and more difficult to detect.
What does this mean for those who try to build a safer cryptography ecosystem?
How the cryptographic community can react
While the United States government redefines its criminal objective, the responsibility to protect investors and the brand’s reputation will be even more in the private sector. Here is how platforms, exchanges, brands and investors that operate in this space can respond:
- Audit your brand perimeter: Regularly succeeding unauthorized tokens lists, false areas and impostor accounts.
- Use threat intelligence technology: The surveillance fueled by AI can detect usurped websites and phishing campaigns on web2 and web3.
- Engage early with regulators: Do not wait for the regulations to reach. Anticipate it and build conformity and trust systems before it is too late.
- Collaborate through the ecosystem: Whether you are a small investor or an exchange with billions of dollars of assets under management, the sharing of information on platforms (that is to say between exchanges, social media platforms and portfolio providers) is essential to identify emerging fraud models.
The doj’s pivot can be strategic. But its training effects – especially in a rapid space such as crypto – are already visible. If you build in web3, it is now time to tighten your defenses. Because for each dollar, the government fell back, bad players invest ten times.
At the heart of each financial system – traditional or decentralized – is confidence. And, at the moment, confidence is one of the greatest vulnerabilities in crypto. The general identity and the scams, associated with a limited application, created a feeling of skepticism which maintains the wider audience on the sidelines.
If companies operating in cryptographic space want digital assets to become common, they must appropriate the confidence of confidence. This means doubling transparency, responsibility and proactive protection. Because until confidence becomes the norm, adoption will remain the exception.
Correction (April 15, 2025, 3:20 pm UTC): Modifies the description of DEF.
