Some Canadians Buy Crypto Just to Pay Ransoms: Survey
According to a recent survey by the Ontario Securities Commission, a whopping 7% of Canadian crypto owners named paying a ransom to a computer hacker as the main reason they used the burgeoning assets in 2023.
The survey shows that 40% of Canadian crypto owners either used crypto to convert it to cash or exchanged it for other crypto assets. Only 18% of them actually used digital assets for buying goods or services. The same percentage of Canadian crypto owners are earning yield from stablecoin lending.
More findings from the survey
Roughly 36% of Canadians hold less than $1,000 of crypto, which shows that this is still a nascent asset in most portfolios.
Almost half of Canadians (48%) hold their cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange. Notably, only 11% of them use hardware wallets.
Alex DovbnyaMost of the survey participants heard about crypto from their friends, family, colleagues, or social media platform users. Roughly a fifth of Canadian cryptocurrency owners learned about it from the financial press.
The vast majority of Canadians rely on four popular cryptocurrency platforms: Coinbase, Wealthsimple, Binance, and Crypto.com.
Ransom attack payments hitting record highs
According to a recent report published by Chainalysis, cryptocurrency ransom attacks surged to a whopping $1.1 billion in 2023. The firm described it as a "watershed" year for ransomware due to record-breaking earnings.
The blockchain sleuth discovered that cybercriminals mainly focused on large payments exceeding $1 million. Moreover, bad actors are becoming more and more sophisticated in order to be able to adapt to law enforcement actions.
The majority of funds from ransomware wallets usually go to no-KYC cryptocurrency exchanges, instances exchangers as well as cryptocurrency mixing services.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.
Related articles
Godfrey Benjamin
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov