In a worrying trend for cryptocurrency enthusiasts, two unfortunate victims have reportedly lost over $62 million combined due to address poisoning scams—a tactic that exploits human error to devastating effect. The crypto community is reeling from these incidents, which highlight how a minor slip can have catastrophic financial consequences.
The first victim, who experienced a staggering loss of $12.2 million in January 2026, tragically copied a phishing address from their transaction history, inadvertently transferring their funds to a malicious wallet. This came shortly after a December 2025 incident where another user lost a staggering $50 million under similar circumstances. Such high-profile losses emphasize the importance of vigilance in the crypto space.
The Mechanism Behind the Scams
At the heart of these scams lies a deceptive method known as address lookalike tricks. Attackers employ subtle tactics, sending tiny “dust” transfers from addresses that closely resemble genuine addresses in a user’s transaction history. When users inadvertently copy an address, they often end up with the wrong one entirely, leading to significant financial losses.
This clever ruse exploits the way most cryptocurrency wallets display addresses, typically showing only the first and last few characters. Anyone unfamiliar with the importance of double-checking might not realize that the middle characters have been swapped, resulting in the victim sending their funds to a scammer instead of their intended recipient.
Someone lost $12.25M in January by copying the wrong address from their transaction history. In December, another victim lost $50M the same way.
Two victims. $62M gone.Signature phishing also surged — $6.27M stolen across 4,741 victims (+207% vs Dec).
Top cases:
· $3.02M —… pic.twitter.com/7D5ynInRrb— Scam Sniffer | Web3 Anti-Scam (@realScamSniffer) February 8, 2026
Moreover, the trend of signature phishing is also rising, with malicious actors using social engineering techniques to lure victims into approving dangerous smart contract calls. In January alone, these scams resulted in $6.27 million being stolen from a staggering 4,741 victims, marking a 207% increase from the prior month.
Interestingly, two particular wallets accounted for a significant portion of the signature phishing losses, highlighting an emergent pattern where attackers combine small dust deposits with manipulative tactics to compel users into signing dangerous transactions.
A Widespread Problem
The address poisoning and phishing incidents are not isolated to a handful of victims. Reports indicate that approximately 270 million poisoning attempts have taken place across popular platforms like Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, impacting roughly 17 million unique addresses. This indicates a systematic exploitation of human errors by automated scripts and high-volume tactics.
Furthermore, a concerning campaign reportedly generated over 82,000 lookalike wallets. By September 2025, there were about 32,290 suspicious poisoning events across the networks, affecting 6,516 unique victims. With the confirmed losses already surpassing $83.8 million, it’s clear that this phenomenon poses a significant threat.
Implications for the Future
The recent surge in small deposits and address poisoning is partially attributed to the Fusaka upgrade on Ethereum, which significantly reduced the cost of insignificant transactions. As a result, analysts identified that around 38% of stablecoin balance updates during this period involved amounts under a single penny, making the dust attack strategy both cheap and effective for scammers.
In light of these scams, blockchain intelligence teams are closely monitoring the transfer of stolen funds. For instance, reports indicate that DAI has become a popular destination for illicit proceeds, as its governance structure does not cooperate with authorities to freeze compromised wallets. Trackers have been cataloging extensive poisonings leading to losses ranging from $4 million to a staggering $126 million in various incidents.
As the cryptocurrency landscape continues to evolve, users must remain vigilant and educated about these threats to safeguard their assets from these cunning scams.
