Etherscan: Address Poisoning Attacks on Ethereum Surge 612% Following the Fusaka Upgrade

According to Etherscan, poisoning attacks on Ethereum addresses are intensifying, particularly following the Fusaka upgrade, which reduced transaction costs and led to a significant surge in high-frequency attack activity. A study covering July 2022 to June 2024 revealed approximately 17 million poisoning attempts on Ethereum, affecting around 1.3 million users and resulting in confirmed losses of at least $79.3 million. The Fusaka upgrade, activated on December 3, 2025, lowered transaction fees and significantly reduced the cost of launching attacks. Within 90 days after the upgrade, USDT dust transfers surged from 4.2 million to 29.9 million (a +612% increase), while USDC transfers rose from 2.6 million to 14.9 million (a +473% increase). Although the success rate of individual poisoning attempts is approximately 0.01%, attackers achieve substantial profits through mass batch sending—previously resulting in losses of $50 million for users. Address poisoning attacks work by sending small, fraudulent transfers to target wallets, embedding counterfeit addresses into users’ transaction histories to trick them into accidentally copying the wrong address during future transactions.