What to Know
According to a Cyvers report, a crypto trader has lost around $600,000 worth of USDT after falling victim to an address poisoning scam, according to a real-time alert from blockchain security firm Cyvers. The case highlights how small wallet address tricks are being used by scammers to steal large amounts of digital assets.
Cyvers said its monitoring system detected the suspicious activity within minutes of the transfer. By then, the funds had already been sent to a fake address that closely matched the real one the trader meant to use.
According to the alert, the victim’s wallet was first “poisoned” about 32 minutes before the final transfer. Later, when the trader tried to send USDT to the correct wallet , they mistakenly sent it to a look-alike malicious address .
The difference between the two addresses is very small and easy to miss, especially when users only check the first and last few characters. Attackers depend on this quick checking habit to trick users. Cyvers reported that the fake address was designed to visually match the trusted address so it would appear safe in the wallet’s recent transaction list.
An address poisoning scam is a simple but effective trick. A scammer sends a very small transaction to a target wallet using an address that looks similar to one the victim has used before. This fake address then shows up in the victim’s transaction history. Later, when the victim copies an address from their history to send funds, they may accidentally copy the scammer’s address instead of the real one. Once the funds are sent, they usually cannot be recovered.
This is not an isolated event. On January 30, another victim lost about $12.3 million in ETH in a similar poisoning attack. In that case, the wallet was poisoned more than a day earlier, and the victim later sent funds to a matching fake address.
A 2025 security report by Cyvers found over 19,000 active scam groups worldwide and more than 4.2 million fraudulent transactions across 780,000 addresses. It estimates that around $16 billion in crypto value has been linked to fraud activity. More than 140 crypto exchanges have also faced fraud cases at least once. Data shows that ETH and stablecoins like USDT and USDC are the most targeted assets. Ethereum alone accounted for about 70% of funds lost in major security incidents last year.
Experts suggest a few simple safety steps. Always check the full wallet address before sending funds. Do not rely only on the first and last characters. Avoid copying addresses directly from transaction history without verifying them. It is also safer to save trusted addresses in an address book and label them clearly. Sending a small test transfer before a large payment can add another layer of safety. As scams become more common, careful checking and slow actions can make a big difference.
