To report a crypto scam on Chainabuse, go to chainabuse.com, open the reporting form, pick the scam category that fits, enter the scammer’s wallet address along with your transaction details, describe what happened, and submit. You can file anonymously. The whole thing takes about ten minutes if your transaction records are ready, and your report joins a public, searchable database that other users, exchanges, and investigators can check.
Gather Your Evidence First
Open the form only after you have your records in one place. The single most important item is the wallet address your funds were sent to. If you don’t have it saved, look it up on a block explorer for the relevant network — blockchain.com/explorer for Bitcoin, etherscan.io for Ethereum.1Chainabuse. Reporting Your Case to Law Enforcement Your own sending wallet address matters too, since it establishes the direction of the transfer.
Pull together the rest before you start typing:
- The transaction hash (TxID) for each transfer, which you can find in your wallet’s history or by searching your address on a block explorer.
- The exact amount and the specific token or coin involved.
- The date and time of each transaction. The block explorer timestamp is authoritative if your memory is fuzzy.
- Any usernames, email addresses, phone numbers, social media handles, or website URLs the scammer used.
- Screenshots and correspondence — chat logs, emails, fake dashboards, promotional messages. Chainabuse lets you attach supporting files.2Chainabuse. Report and Combat Crypto Scams
Capture evidence quickly. Scammers delete accounts, Telegram channels, and websites once they’ve collected enough money, and cached pages are not guaranteed to survive. Save everything to a cloud folder and a local drive, because you’ll reuse the same material for law enforcement filings later.
You can still submit with just a wallet address and a description if that’s all you have, but a thinner report is less useful to the next person searching the database and to any investigator who picks it up.
Pick the Right Scam Category
The form asks you to classify the fraud. Choosing the closest match matters because the platform consolidates reports by category and address, which is how patterns across multiple victims become visible. The current options are:2Chainabuse. Report and Combat Crypto Scams
- Phishing — a fake site or deceptive link that captured your credentials or private keys.
- Rug pull — a project team collected funds and then vanished along with their website and social presence.
- Blackmail — a threat against you or your systems unless you paid in crypto.
- Sextortion — a demand for crypto in exchange for keeping compromising material private.
- Ransomware — malware that locked your files or computer, with crypto demanded for access.
- Impersonation — someone posing as a celebrity, investor, or representative of a legitimate organization.
- Fake crypto project — fraudulent tokens, fake DeFi protocols, or NFT schemes.
- Fake return scam — promises of guaranteed or inflated returns, including Ponzi structures and pump-and-dump schemes.
Some scams blend tactics. Pig butchering, for example, often begins as impersonation on a dating app or through a “wrong number” text and ends as a fake return scam built around a fake trading platform. Pick the category that best captures the core of what happened and use the description field to explain the rest.
Fill Out and Submit the Form
Go to chainabuse.com and choose the option to file a complaint.3Chainabuse. Report and Combat Crypto Scams The form moves through a few screens: the wallet address involved, the blockchain network, the scam category, a written description, and an upload slot for screenshots and supporting documents.
Write the description clearly and in order. Include a timeline: when you first made contact with the scammer, when you sent funds, and when you realized it was a scam. Name the specific platforms where the interaction happened — Telegram, WhatsApp, the URL of the fake trading site. If you sent multiple transactions to different addresses, list each one. The description is what gives human readers context that raw transaction data can’t carry on its own.
You can submit anonymously. Recent reports on the platform are attributed to “Anonymous” by default, and Chainabuse says personal information stays private and is shared with law enforcement only with your explicit consent.3Chainabuse. Report and Combat Crypto Scams If you want case follow-up, you can opt in by providing contact details.
Before submitting, check the wallet address character by character. A single wrong character points to an entirely different, possibly innocent, account. Then submit; the platform confirms receipt on screen.
Keep Your Own Information Out of the Description
Chainabuse says it will never ask for passwords, payment, or personal information you don’t choose to share.3Chainabuse. Report and Combat Crypto Scams What appears publicly is the reported wallet address, the scam category, and the description you wrote. So keep your own identifying details — full name, home address, bank account numbers — out of the description text.
There’s a second consideration worth understanding. Blockchain transactions are public by design, so linking your own wallet address to your real identity anywhere online exposes your entire transaction history to anyone who looks. Blockchain analysis has been used to send targeted extortion emails that reference victims’ exact balances. For the Chainabuse report itself, the scammer’s wallet is the essential piece; providing your own helps establish the transaction chain, but weigh it against how much on-chain activity sits behind your address.
What Happens After You Submit
Your report joins a searchable public database. Anyone can enter a wallet address in the search bar at chainabuse.com and see whether it has been flagged.4TRM Labs. Announcing the Launch of Chainabuse Reports against the same address or entity are consolidated, so a wallet flagged by five different people carries more weight than one with a single complaint. That consolidation is the point of the platform — isolated incidents become a visible pattern.
The database also feeds compliance tools used by partner cryptocurrency exchanges, which receive a consolidated view of reported illicit activity to help their internal investigations move faster.4TRM Labs. Announcing the Launch of Chainabuse In practice, your report could contribute to an exchange freezing a scammer’s account before funds move further. You can search the address later to see whether other victims have filed against it.
Also File With Law Enforcement
A Chainabuse report creates a public record. It is not a law enforcement complaint. If you lost money, file separately with the agencies below, and file quickly — the longer you wait, the more likely the funds have moved through mixers or been converted to other assets.
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
File at ic3.gov. For cryptocurrency fraud, the IC3 specifically asks for wallet addresses, the amounts and types of cryptocurrency, transaction hashes, and the dates and times of each transaction.5Internet Crime Complaint Center. Cryptocurrency If you can, add how you met the scammer, what communication platforms you used, any web domains, and phone numbers or other identifiers. The FBI also encourages reporting attempted scams even when no money was lost, because they help map fraud networks. An analyst reviews the complaint and routes it to the appropriate agency.
The FBI’s Recovery Asset Team can sometimes intervene to freeze transfers, which is another reason to report fast. Victims 60 or older can call the National Elder Fraud Hotline at 833-372-8311 for help filing an IC3 complaint.5Internet Crime Complaint Center. Cryptocurrency
One warning from the FBI: be skeptical of cryptocurrency recovery services, especially any that charge an upfront fee. Many are secondary scams targeting people who’ve already lost money.5Internet Crime Complaint Center. Cryptocurrency
Federal Trade Commission
File at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. An interactive assistant walks you through describing the scam. The FTC won’t investigate your individual case, but every report feeds Consumer Sentinel, a secure database shared with over 2,000 law enforcement agencies worldwide, which federal and state investigators use to build larger cases.6Federal Trade Commission. Report Fraud
Local Police and Your State Attorney General
File a police report with your local department. The report number is often required if you later pursue insurance claims, civil litigation, or need to document the theft for tax purposes. Your state attorney general’s consumer protection division may also accept fraud complaints and can coordinate with federal agencies.