Investors robbed of $11 mn Bitcoins in four years: Study

New York, Jan 31: Frauds such as online ponzi schemes have skimmed at least $11 million in Bitcoin deposits from unsuspecting cyber customers over the past four years, a study says. Bitcoin is the digital world's most popular virtual currency, with millions in circulation. "Our calculation of $11 million is almost certainly at the low-end," said lead researcher Marie Vasek from Southern Methodist University in the US. "The amount of Bitcoin that depositors have lost to these scams is probably many millions more," Vasek added. The researchers identified 41 scams occurring between 2011 and 2014, in which fraudulent sites stole Bitcoin from at least 13,000 victims. "We found that the most successful scams draw the vast majority of their revenue from a few victims," Vasek said. The researchers were only able to track revenues for about 21 percent of the scams, which would indicate that the amount of Bitcoin actually stolen most likely far exceeds $11 million. There are 13.7 million Bitcoin in circulation, according to blockchain.info. The number of Bitcoin transactions exceeds 100,000 per day.