A crypto person has misplaced $50 million price of USDT after falling for an “address poisoning” rip-off, copying the scammer’s tackle from their very own transaction historical past.
Crypto safety skilled Web3 Antivirus noticed the unfortunate sufferer’s outgoings earlier right this moment. The person first despatched a take a look at transaction of virtually $50 price of USDT to a crypto tackle starting “0xbaf,” and ending with “F8b5.”
Nevertheless, they then despatched virtually $50 million price of USDT to a suspiciously related tackle that begins with “0xBaF,” and ends with “f8b5.”
The complete rip-off tackle, “0xBaFF2F13638C04B10F8119760B2D2aE86b08f8b5,” has a distinct physique from the recipient of the take a look at transaction, suggesting that the sender didn’t verify past the primary few digits of the tackle.
Tips on how to lose $50M in below an hour. This is without doubt one of the largest on-chain rip-off losses we’ve seen not too long ago.
A single sufferer misplaced $50M in $USDT to an tackle poisoning rip-off. The funds had arrived lower than 1h earlier.
The person first despatched a small take a look at tx to the right tackle. Minutes… pic.twitter.com/Umsr8oTcXC
— Web3 Antivirus (@web3_antivirus) December 19, 2025
The sufferer’s pockets was lively for 2 years and obtained its funds from Binance.
The redirected funds have since been transformed into the unfreezable stablecoin Dai, despatched onwards to a different tackle, and are actually being swapped into wrapped ether by way of “Rizzolsver: Uniswap X.”
How does crypto poisoning work?
An tackle poisoning rip-off works by sending small quantities of crypto, generally known as “dust,” from an tackle that’s much like the goal’s recipient.
These small traces of crypto seem within the sufferer’s transactions — therefore the “poisoning” — and may trick them into unintentionally copying and pasting that tackle as a substitute of the reliable one they meant to ship to.
In a single occasion, somebody unintentionally despatched $70 million to a poisoned tackle. They then started making an attempt to barter with the scammer, providing to allow them to preserve 10% of their funds.
The scammer finally returned greater than half of the stolen funds to the sufferer.
Two extra victims misplaced over $200,000 collectively final yr after copying the unsuitable deposit tackle and sending the crypto to the poisoned tackle.
