Over the past 18 months, Minnesotans have lost more than $10 million to scams paid in cryptocurrency. That is more than half of every scam dollar reported to the state attorney general’s office in the period, and it is the number Keith Ellison put at the front of his argument this week.
On Monday Ellison joined 15 other attorneys general in a letter opposing the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, the federal crypto bill. It went to Sens. Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren, chair and ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee. According to Ellison’s office, the signatories say the bill would limit states’ ability to pursue crypto fraud cases and would let the Securities and Exchange Commission preempt state registration authority over digital assets.
Under the hood, that is the whole dispute. Registration authority decides who can act when a token issuer or exchange goes wrong, and whether a state has to wait on Washington first.
Who signed
The group crosses party lines: Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, plus Minnesota.
The numbers
The Consumer Action Division of Ellison’s office says it has received hundreds of complaints about crypto-based scams since 2019. Minnesota did not wait for Congress. A state law banning cryptocurrency kiosks took effect on Aug. 1. From 2023 to 2025 the state logged 134 complaints tied to those kiosks, with reported losses reaching nearly $1 million.
Nationally, the FBI reported $11.4 billion in losses from crypto-related complaints in 2025, up 22% from 2024, with an average reported loss of $62,604. The Federal Trade Commission put its figure at $1.78 billion, a rise of 25.6%. Ellison’s office also noted that since 2017 states have brought more than 330 anti-fraud enforcement actions against scammers in the crypto ecosystem.
