Artificial intelligence has reduced the cost of cyberattacks on cryptocurrency projects tenfold

Artificial intelligence has become the main tool of cybercriminals attacking cryptocurrency platforms. This conclusion was reached by analysts at Binance, the world’s largest exchange in terms of trading volumes. According to their research, modern AI models demonstrate up to 72.2% efficiency in automating cyberattacks and creating malicious tools.

Attackers are actively using generative AI to deploy phishing schemes: they create fake platforms, messenger bots, and fake accounts that imitate real company employees. The technology allows to scale attacks without human intervention — to automatically generate personalized messages and maintain correspondence with potential victims.

The financial benefit of such operations is significantly higher than the results of old methods. Binance estimates that fraudsters using AI tools earn 4.5 times more income than those who still rely on outdated schemes.

Separately, the researchers recorded an explosive growth in the number of diplomatic fakes. The number of such incidents increased by 1400% in a year. At the same time, crypto projects have become the main target, accounting for 88% of all AI fraud cases.

The total volume of cryptocurrency crimes in 2024 reached $ 17 billion, which is 31% more than a year earlier, when losses amounted to $ 13 billion. The upward trend coincides with the massive proliferation of affordable AI tools on the black market.

Charles Guillemette, CTO of Ledger, a manufacturer of hardware crypto wallets, has previously spoken about the same problem. According to him, artificial intelligence significantly reduces hackers' costs and simplifies attacks on cryptocurrency platforms.