When you buy through affiliate links in our content, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Learn 
On May 21, Coinbase launched “Tech Against Scams,” a coalition with top crypto and tech firms.
Meta, blockchain payment firm Ripple, Kraken, and Gemini are partners. The Global Anti-Scam Organization (GASO) and Match Group, parent company of Tinder and Hinge, are also on board.
According to the official announcement, this alliance of major tech firms is committed to sharing knowledge, leveraging collective expertise, and creating a more secure digital ecosystem. By working together, they aim to prevent users from falling victim to online fraud, including romance scams and pig butchering schemes.
We’re proud to announce the Tech Against Scams coalition.
Scams are a tech-wide issue and require an industry-wide response. Together with industry leaders, we're committed to protecting and educating users.
Learn More→ https://t.co/3w8gfEUFZr pic.twitter.com/E1nGlT8lzi
— Coinbase 🛡️ (@coinbase) May 21, 2024
The coalition will educate users on combatting online fraud and provide them with the tools to stay safe.
Guy Rosen, Meta’s Chief Information Security Officer (CSO), emphasized the coalition’s importance in improving digital security and disrupting scam networks globally.
He stated,
“Scammers and the organized criminal groups behind pig butchering schemes target people across many internet services, making it hard for any one company to see the full picture of malicious activity and counting on each of us working in silos.”
The CSO further expressed optimism that the new coalition will serve as a force multiplier for security teams at tech companies, enabling them to share threat insights and trends and more impactfully disrupt scam networks worldwide.
It's great to see the industry uniting to fight one of our biggest problems. Strength in numbers. https://t.co/rVJlZCbEr7
— Digital Currency Traders Alliance (@DCTAorg) May 21, 2024
Long before the Netflix documentary “The Tinder Swindler” shed light on the manipulative tactics used by scammers on online dating platforms, romance scams had already been a pervasive problem.
These scams typically involve creating fake social media accounts or profiles on dating sites to build trust with targets before convincing them to send cryptocurrency or other forms of money.
In 2019, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that romance scams had increased to become the costliest consumer fraud. Losses jumped from $33M in 2015 to $143M in 2018.
Social media fraud is another clear and present danger.
In 2021, US consumers lost $770 million to social media scams, an 18-fold increase from 2017. The FTC also reported that investment scams led to consumer losses exceeding $3.8 billion in 2022, more than doubling the amount lost in 2021.
These figures highlight the growing threat of online fraud across various platforms. The Tech Against Scams coalition aims to create a more secure digital sector by facilitating knowledge sharing and collaboration across different tech sectors.
