Politicians keep pointing to crypto scams as a major reason to ban/oppose crypto. Crypto scammers around the world cost users a total of $14 billion. While just Americans alone lost $29.8 Billion to phone scams. So what gives? Is this blind hate or do these counter-points hold up.

Came across these numbers while digging around as part of another conversation. Both of the following articles are taken from the same site (CNBC) for consistency's sake

Scammers around the world took home a record $14 billion in cryptocurrency in 2021

Americans lost $29.8 billion to phone scams alone over the past year

So a total of $14 Bil lost around the world in the whole of crypto vs $29.8 Bil lost only in America by just one type of scam.

Now I agree that crypto scams are a BIG issue and should not be brushed aside at all. It is a major stumbling block to adoption. But im super (almost disgustingly) pro crypto. So the fact that politicians dont quote these numbers looked like simple fear mongering to me.

Then more level headed people came along and provided some interesting counter-points:

1 – The population that uses Fiat is much greater than the crypto using population. (However, just in this case i wana point out that the total crypto usebase was 295mil last year and the US Pop is 330mil. So not too dissimilar)

2 – The total Fiat holdings is much greater than total crypto cap so as a proportion the amount lost to crypto is much higher

3 – Total number of transactions in Fiat is much higher tham crypto. So the % of fraudulent transactions in crypto maybe quite high. Hence as crypto grows in size the scammed amount will grow exponentially.

4 – Crypto scams cant be easily reported like Fiat scams can. That makes people more helpless.

We all hate crypto scams to the core but do you think the people in power are blowing it out of proportion to serve their own agendas? Or are crypto scams potentially more dangerous than Fiat scams due to its inherent (relatively) unregulated nature? Or is it something in between?