The Economics of Attention in Crypto: Pay-to-Message Systems Combat $5.6 Billion Fraud Problem
Crypto's communication crisis reached alarming levels in 2023, with FBI data showing $5.6 billion lost to fraud—a 45% surge from 2022. Phishing scams accounted for $300 million of this sum, exploiting SMS systems that allow scammers to blast 100,000 messages for just $400. The math favors bad actors: a 2,400% ROI if only 10 victims fall for $1,000 scams.
Traditional spam filters fail in crypto's fast-moving environment, where legitimate NFT trades or DAO proposals often resemble scams. The result? A market failure where signal drowns in noise. Emerging platforms now weaponize an old economic principle: pay-to-message systems that impose costs on senders. These solutions aim to restore trust by making communication economically accountable—a radical shift from permissionless spam.
