Based on TheMarketPeriodical, a cryptocurrency user lost nearly $50 million in USDT on December 20, 2025, after falling victim to an address poisoning scam on the Ethereum blockchain. The victim sent a small test transaction to their own wallet, and a scammer quickly sent a tiny 'dust' transaction from a spoofed address that closely resembled the real one. The victim copied the fake address from their transaction history and sent the full amount to the scammer. The stolen funds were quickly converted to Ethereum and moved through multiple wallets, including Tornado Cash, making recovery nearly impossible. Address poisoning scams have caused over $100 million in losses on Ethereum and its layer-2 networks in 2024. Experts recommend full address verification, hardware wallets, and ENS domains to prevent such incidents.
Crypto User Loses $50M in USDT After Copy-Paste Error on Ethereum
TheMarketPeriodicalShare
Summary
A crypto user lost $50 million in USDT on December 20, 2025, after an address poisoning scam on Ethereum. On-chain data shows the victim sent a test transaction, then copied a spoofed address from their history. A dust transaction from a near-identical address tricked them into sending the full amount. On-chain analysis reveals the funds were rapidly converted to ETH and moved via Tornado Cash. Address poisoning scams have caused over $100 million in losses in 2024. Experts advise verifying full addresses, using hardware wallets, and ENS domains to avoid similar attacks.
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