Austria’s Financial Market Authority (FMA) said Friday there has been an increase in crime using cryptocurrencies and stricter regulation is needed. 

• The FMA reports two-thirds of the investment fraud reports filed in 2020 were related to cryptocurrency and digital currency trading products, according to a Bloomberg report.
• “We see a great need for stricter regulation,” FMA spokesman Klaus Grubelnik told Bloomberg. “Fake offerings for stocks and gold have been around forever and these scams are now shifting to digital assets because of the hype.”
• There has been an increasing number of scams using digital currencies advertised on social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok, and Telegram, warned the FMA.
• Grubelnik said prosecution was even more difficult in such cases as investigations usually have to be conducted across borders.

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