# Characterizing Cryptocurrency Exchange Scams

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.07314 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.07314/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 16 Mar 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Cryptocurrency Frauds for Dummies: How ChatGPT introduces us to fraud?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.03079/) (2024)
- [Clean Up the Mess: Addressing Data Pollution in Cryptocurrency Abuse Reporting Services](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.21041/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

As the indispensable trading platforms of the ecosystem, hundreds of cryptocurrency exchanges are emerging to facilitate the trading of digital assets. While, it also attracts the attentions of attackers. A number of scam attacks were reported targeting cryptocurrency exchanges, leading to a huge mount of financial loss. However, no previous work in our research community has systematically studied this problem. In this paper, we make the first effort to identify and characterize the cryptocurrency exchange scams. We first identify over 1,500 scam domains and over 300 fake apps, by collecting existing reports and using typosquatting generation techniques. Then we investigate the relationship between them, and identify 94 scam domain families and 30 fake app families. We further characterize the impacts of such scams, and reveal that these scams have incurred financial loss of 520k US dollars at least. We further observe that the fake apps have been sneaked to major app markets (including Google Play) to infect unsuspicious users. Our findings demonstrate the urgency to identify and prevent cryptocurrency exchange scams. To facilitate future research, we have publicly released all the identified scam domains and fake apps to the community.