Scam Alert is Crystal’s new platform to support scam victims. CEO Navin Gupta explains how it helps law enforcement and aims to combat fraud.
What inspired the creation of Scam Alert? Why does this initiative matter now?
Despite being a B2B company, we consistently receive messages from scam victims—people desperate for support, with few viable options.
These are real stories: elderly individuals losing life savings or young people misled through online channels. Most face silence or indifference when they report their losses. Meanwhile, the perpetrators continue scamming thousands more.
That needs to change. Scam Alert is our response—offering victims a channel to be heard, and connecting their reports into actionable intelligence for law enforcement, VASPs, and ultimately the broader crypto ecosystem.
What are the key features of Scam Alert, and how does it work?
Scam Alert is a victim-first platform. Here’s how it functions:
- The victim reports a scam. We verify and structure this data.
- Crystal’s analytics kick in, clustering similar cases to reveal patterns and scale.
- These clusters are shared with:
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- Law Enforcement Agencies, helping them prioritize and coordinate investigations.
- VASPs, enabling preemptive action like flagging suspect wallets or alerting users mid-transaction.
- We’re also developing features like wallet address warnings, which will notify users in real time if they’re about to transfer funds to a known scam address.
How does this align with Crystal’s strategic vision and values?
Our mission is to make blockchain intelligence accessible and actionable. While we serve institutions globally, we believe in hyperlocal impact—tailoring tools and strategies that make a difference territory by territory.
Scam Alert is also a real-time information breakthrough. Until now, real-time typologies have been hard to access and provide to Law Enforcement. By inviting public and institutional contributions, we can scale our insights faster and more accurately, which is essential for identifying scam typologies and emerging threats. We can be proactive rather than reactive.
Importantly, this is not a commercial tool. It’s an open, collaborative initiative, one we hope becomes foundational across the crypto space—like a “Wikipedia for scam intelligence,” enhanced with Crystal’s vetting algorithms.
What kind of impact can Scam Alert have for victims and the broader industry?
Scam Alert creates a feedback loop for justice and prevention:
- Victims gain visibility—they are no longer isolated cases, but part of a larger signal that can’t be ignored.
- Law enforcement gains leverage, helping them uncover large-scale fraud networks.
- VASPs can intervene earlier, protecting users with real-time insights and reducing platform risk.
In some cases, this supports fund recovery. For example, if a scammer is arrested and funds are seized, our database can help match victims to restitution processes—something that’s already happened in major U.S. cases.
What are the next steps, and how can others get involved?
We’re launching Scam Alert in phases:
- Phase 1: Victim Value. Begin collecting and clustering reports globally in multiple languages.
- Phase 2: Law Enforcement Access. Allow vetted partners to access case clusters and metadata for action.
- Phase 3: Industry Collaboration. Onboard protocols, exchanges, and nonprofits to contribute and utilize the data.
We’re also planning a grassroots ambassador model to expand our hyperlocal reach—think associations or foundations who can rally victims and connect the dots in their region.
We’re not doing this alone. Our partners—from VA Alert to potential collaborators like Shamrock and CoinTelegraph—are crucial to spreading the word, expanding access, and maintaining momentum.
What’s your message to the crypto community at large?
Scams are the single biggest barrier to Web3 adoption. If we want a decentralized future, we must make it safer and more just.
To the crypto community:
Stand with us. Join the Scam Alert network. Contribute data, share knowledge, and help us support victims with dignity. This is how we build trust—and a stronger ecosystem—for everyone.
