A cryptocurrency dealer misplaced almost $50 million in USDT to an handle poisoning rip-off on December 20, 2025.
The sufferer transferred 49,999,950 USDT to a fraudulent handle copied from transaction historical past.
The whole theft occurred in underneath one hour. SlowMist monitoring reported that the stolen funds have been quickly transformed to Ethereum, dispersed throughout a number of wallets, and partially laundered by Twister Money.
The sufferer posted an on-chain message demanding return of 98% of the stolen funds inside 48 hours.
The sufferer additionally provided the attacker $1 million as a white-hat bounty whereas threatening authorized and worldwide legislation enforcement motion.
Crypto assault exploited transaction historical past
The sufferer withdrew $50 million from Binance shortly earlier than the assault occurred. Following commonplace safety practices, the consumer first despatched a small check transaction of fifty USDT to the supposed recipient handle.
Minutes later, the attacker had already injected a fraudulent handle into the sufferer’s transaction historical past by a mud transaction of 0.005 USDT.
When the sufferer returned to ship the complete quantity, they copied what gave the impression to be their vacation spot handle from current transactions.
The spoofed handle matched the respectable one within the first three and final 4 characters.
The pockets had been lively on-chain for roughly two years and was primarily used for USDT transfers.
On-chain evaluation suggests attackers have been monitoring whale pockets actions, ready for giant transfers to execute the rip-off.
Handle poisoning reaches $3.4 billion in 2025 losses
The $50 million theft is a fraction of 2025’s complete handle poisoning injury. The yr has seen $3.4 billion in confirmed losses from handle poisoning assaults throughout the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Over 158,000 private wallets have been compromised, affecting 80,000 distinctive victims. September 2025 alone documented 32,290 suspicious poisoning occasions throughout a number of blockchain networks, impacting 6,516 distinctive victims.
Researchers have tracked over 270 million poisoning makes an attempt throughout Ethereum and Binance Sensible Chain.
Confirmed losses particularly attributed to deal with poisoning methods exceed $83.8 million past the headline incidents.
Scammers monitor blockchain exercise for high-value transfers, then instantly inject poisoned addresses that seem in victims’ transaction histories at opportune moments.
