Crypto user loses $50 million in 'address poisoning' scam
Analysis
Price Impact
LowThis incident highlights individual user security risks due to social engineering ('address poisoning'), not a systemic vulnerability in usdt or the underlying blockchain. while a significant loss for the individual, a $50 million theft, however unfortunate, is unlikely to cause a direct material impact on the overall market capitalization or the peg of usdt, which has a market cap in the tens of billions. the funds were also subsequently swapped to eth, but again, the amount is not sufficient to move the needle on eth's price.
Trustworthiness
HighThe news comes from coindesk, a reputable crypto media outlet, detailing a verified on-chain event spotted by a web3 security firm.
Price Direction
NeutralThe market has shown resilience to individual security incidents of this nature, especially when they stem from user error rather than protocol exploits. while it reinforces general security concerns, it's unlikely to trigger a broad sell-off or significantly impact the price of major assets like usdt or eth.
Time Effect
ShortAny potential negative sentiment or increased caution amongst users will likely be short-lived. the market tends to absorb such individual incidents relatively quickly, especially when they don't indicate a wider systemic risk.
Original Article:
Article Content:
Web3 Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Crypto user loses $50 million in 'address poisoning' scam The scammer sent a small "dust" amount to the victim's transaction history, causing the victim to copy the address and send $50M to the scammer's address. By Francisco Rodrigues , AI Boost | Edited by Aoyon Ashraf Dec 20, 2025, 5:43 p.m. (brandwayart/Pixabay/Modified by CoinDesk) What to know : A crypto user lost $50 million in USDT after falling for an "address poisoning" scam, where a scammer created a wallet address that closely resembled the intended destination address. The scammer sent a small "dust" amount to the victim's transaction history, causing the victim to copy the address and send $49,999,950 USDT to the scammer's address. The victim has published an onchain message demanding the return of 98% of the stolen funds within 48 hours, offering a $1 million white-hat bounty, and threatening legal escalation and criminal charges if the funds are not returned. A crypto user lost $50 million in USDT after falling for an address poisoning scam in a massive onchain exploit. The theft, spotted by Web3 security firm Web3 Antivirus , occurred after the user sent a $50 test transaction to confirm the destination address before transferring the rest of the funds. STORY CONTINUES BELOW Don't miss another story. Subscribe to the The Protocol Newsletter today . See all newsletters Sign me up By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Loading... Within minutes, a scammer created a wallet address that closely resembled the destination, matching the first and last characters, knowing most wallets abbreviate addresses and show only prefixes and suffixes. The scammer then sent the victim a tiny “dust” amount to poison their transaction history. Seemingly believing the destination address was legitimate and properly entered, the victim copied the address from their transaction history and ended up sending $49,999,950 USDT to the scammer’s address. These small dust transactions are often sent to addresses with large holdings, poisoning transaction histories in an attempt to catch users in copy-paste errors, such as this one. Bots conducting these transactions cast a wide net, hoping for success, which they achieved in this case. Blockchain data shows the stolen funds were then swapped for ether ETH $ 2,977.24 and moved across multiple wallets. Several addresses involved have since interacted with Tornado Cash , a sanctioned crypto mixer, in a bid to obfuscate the transaction trail. In response, the victim published an onchain message demanding the return of 98% of the stolen funds within 48 hours. The message, backed with legal threats, offered the attacker $1 million as a white-hat bounty if the assets are returned in full. Failure to comply, the message warns, will trigger legal escalation and criminal charges. “This is your final opportunity to resolve this matter peacefully,” the victim wrote in the message. “If you fail to comply: we will escalate the matter through legal international law enforcement channels.” Address poisoning exploits no vulnerabilities in code or cryptography, but instead takes advantage of user habits, namely, the reliance on partial address matching and copy-pasting from transaction history. scam Security Onchain Transactions AI Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards . For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy . More For You Protocol Research: GoPlus Security By CoinDesk Research Nov 14, 2025 Commissioned by GoPlus What to know : As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M. GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month. Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B. View Full Report More For You Real-World Asset DeFi Moves Into Sports Finance With Tokenized Football Club Revenues By Jamie Crawley , AI Boost | Edited by Aoyon Ashraf Dec 15, 2025 A new DeFi model is providing football clubs with faster access to liquidity by converting future media and broadcasting revenues into tokenized, onchain assets. 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