Congress has a chance to stop rising crypto scams | Opinion

Aug. 9, 2026, 4:05 a.m. CT

• Cryptocurrency scams are a rapidly growing form of fraud, disproportionately affecting older Americans and rural families.
• Congress is considering the CLARITY Act to establish clear regulations for digital assets and combat fraud.
• The bill would define regulatory roles for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
• It also aims to create a public-private task force to help law enforcement track and prosecute digital-asset crimes.

Cryptocurrency scams have become one of the fastest-growing forms of fraud in the country, and older Americans and rural families are among the hardest hit.

By one senator's account, crypto-related scams made up roughly half of all cybercrime losses in the United States last year. For a Kansas family that has watched a retirement account drained by a fake investment “adviser” or a crypto-ATM scheme, that statistic is not abstract. It is the phone call you dread.

For years, Washington has failed these families twice over: It never wrote clear rules for digital assets, and it never gave law enforcement the coordinated tools to chase the criminals exploiting the gap. Congress finally has a bill that takes on both problems at once, and the Senate is about to decide whether it lives or dies.