It was recently reported by The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the consumer watchdog of Australia, that they received nearly more than 1,200 complaints related to cryptocurrency scams in 2017. To be more precise, a total of 1289 complaint were received by the ACCC which were related to crypto frauds, and the resulting losses incurred due to these scams were worth $1,218,206 AUD. ABC’s current affairs program 7.30 collected this data.

The program did not reveal to which operators these complaints were aimed at. However one certain investor came forward claiming that he was duped by an exchange called Igot for $20,000 when he wanted to sell some of his bitcoins on this exchange, he also added that he has received almost no help from the authorities when he tried to get his money back from this exchange.

Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) commissioner John Price issued a warning when he spoke to the program stating that certain cryptocurrency products are frauds and that people who are keen on investing in these types of projects should brace themselves to incur some losses or maybe even loose all of their invested sum.The news comes two months prior to the Australian government implementing some regulations on the local crypto market.

It was announced in December that, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (Austrac), the country’s financial intelligence agency, were given the nod by the government for monitoring of local cryptocurrency exchanges.

The regulations of Austrac came into effect from December, all crypto exchanges in the country are required to register with Austrac. Also existing and upcoming exchanges are required to follow some more procedures like, the verification of their user’s identities, keeping a track of all transactions for at least seven years and anti-money laundering laws coming into effect

Furthermore Paul McKenzie, operations manager at Victoria-based digital currency exchange ACX.io quoted at the time,