Address poisoning scam costs trader 49,999,950 USDT

On 20 December 2025 a trader lost 49,999,950 USDT to address poisoning: after a 50 USDT test transfer, a script generated a lookalike address that the victim copied from transaction history. A USENIX Security 2025 paper counted over 270 million attack attempts and at least $83.8 million in losses on Ethereum and BNB Chain between 2022 and 2024.

• The lookalike matched the first five and last four characters of the intended address
• The 50 USDT test went out at 3:06 UTC; the full transfer followed at 3:32 UTC
• Stolen funds were swapped to ETH and moved through Tornado Cash
• USENIX study logged 6,633 successful incidents and over 17 million victims