The hype surrounding cryptocurrencies has made them susceptible to security concerns. Many fraudsters have leveraged the popularity to defraud honest investors of their hard-earned money. If you think this is a mere speculation, the examples below say otherwise. 

While there are tons of cryptocurrency-related crimes, I will only talk about the top 5 worst crimes in cryptocurrency history. 

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1. Mark Karpeles
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Mark Karpeles was the CEO of Mt. Gox, a Bitcoin exchange when the worst cryptocurrency crime was committed. Unexpectedly, Karpeles was the brain behind the cryptocurrency crime that pulled the company down. He single-handedly stole over 750,000 Bitcoins that are estimated to be worth a whopping $3 billion. That crime brought Mt. Gox, once the world’s leading Bitcoin trading platform, to its shameful end. 

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1. Sheep Marketplace
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Sheep Marketplace was the go-to Bitcoin exchange after the closure of the black market in 2013. Marketplace was opened in October 2013 to provide the best platform for Bitcoin and other currencies to investors. 

The greatest undoing of this cryptocurrency exchange was its popularity. Hackers capitalized on this and hacked the exchange in December 2013, just two months after it was opened. 

The hackers eventually stole over 96,000 Bitcoin worth millions of dollars according to the current Bitcoin-to-Dollar exchange. 

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1. OneCoin Scam
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The crime committed by OneCoin also ranks high among the worst cryptocurrency crimes in history. The company was charged with cryptocurrency crime in April when it was discovered that 18 of the exchange’s representatives have defrauded the investors in the coin to the tune of some $350 million. The scamming was done via a Germany-based payment processor. It is quite sad that the exchange that people looked up to for the security of their cryptocurrencies was even a front for cryptocurrency crime. 

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1. The DAO heist
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In June 2016, the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) raised some $150 million worth of ether, a strong Bitcoin rival. While the organization stored the fund until the members would determine how the fund would be used, chunks of the raised ether were gradually transferred from the address where it was stored. Eventually, almost $80 million worth of ether was stolen from the store. The hackers committed the crime within a couple of hours. 

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1. Theodore Price
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Theodore Price was a young hacker who confessed to stealing between $40 million and $50 million worth of Bitcoin. The self-acclaimed hacker confessed to this crime while he was being investigated for the theft of his girlfriend’s parents’ laptops and jewelry. 

Price confessed to Homeland Security Agent and a local detective that he wrote software to steal Bitcoin by replacing legit wallet addresses through the malware that he developed. If his claims are true, that’s obviously one of the biggest crimes committed in the cryptocurrency world. 

These are just a few of the jaw-dropping crimes that have been committed in cryptocurrency world by hardened criminals. The theft has led to the loss of billions of dollars worth of digital currencies up till date.