Changpeng Zhao, the co-founder and former CEO of Binance, has referred to as for the crypto business to take stronger, coordinated motion to remove handle poisoning scams.
The warning comes after a single sufferer misplaced practically $50 million in USDT in what analysts describe as one of many largest on-chain phishing losses in latest months.
How a Single Copy-Paste Error Triggered a $50M Crypto Heist
The incident unfolded in below an hour. In keeping with on-chain knowledge and safety companies monitoring the case, the sufferer withdrew funds from Binance and despatched a small take a look at transaction of fifty USDT to the proper vacation spot handle.
Crypto dealer loses $50 million to handle poisoning rip-off as business grapples with practically $90 billion in cumulative safety losses.#Crypto #Scamhttps://t.co/ZXn2iF8wdi
— Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews) December 20, 2025
Minutes later, the person copied an handle from their transaction historical past and despatched 49,999,950 USDT to a unique pockets that carefully resembled the meant recipient.
The fraudulent handle had been planted by attackers by means of a previous microtransaction, a typical tactic utilized in handle poisoning scams.
The sufferer’s pockets, energetic for about two years and largely used for USDT transfers, despatched the funds shortly after the withdrawal from Binance.
Preliminary reviews indicated the stolen USDT remained on the vacation spot handle quickly, although related instances present funds are sometimes shortly moved, swapped, or laundered by means of a number of wallets.
On this case, blockchain investigators later noticed parts of the funds transformed to ETH and routed by means of a number of addresses, with some passing by means of the Twister Money mixer.
Zhao addressed the incident in a public put up, describing it as an issue the business ought to be capable to remove totally.
He proposed that wallets mechanically flag and block identified poison addresses utilizing easy blockchain queries, warning customers earlier than transactions are despatched.
He additionally urged business safety teams to take care of real-time blacklists that wallets may seek the advice of previous to execution and recommended filtering out spam transactions totally so customers don’t see mud transfers of their histories.
Binance Pockets, he stated, already implements a few of these protections.
As Deal with Poisoning Grows, Lawmakers and Stablecoin Issuers Step In
Deal with poisoning, typically known as dusting, is a type of phishing wherein attackers ship tiny quantities of crypto to wallets from addresses designed to look practically similar to legit ones.
When customers later copy an handle from their transaction historical past as an alternative of a verified supply, they could unknowingly paste the attacker’s handle.
Matching the primary few and final characters of a pockets handle is commonly sufficient to deceive customers, particularly throughout high-value transfers.
Safety companies say the tactic is rising as SlowMist and different analysts have flagged handle poisoning as an growing risk, significantly on networks with low transaction charges the place attackers can function at scale.
TRM Labs has documented in depth dusting exercise on the TRON blockchain, the place free or near-free transfers enable bots to flood wallets with spoofed transactions.
Their analysis reveals attackers generate 1000’s of vainness addresses and deploy automated programs that concentrate on just lately energetic or high-balance wallets, particularly these holding stablecoins like USDT.
The $50 million loss comes amid a broader surge in crypto-related fraud. Trade estimates counsel practically $90 billion has been misplaced to hacks and exploits since crypto’s inception, with greater than $9 billion recorded in 2025 alone.
November noticed over $276 million stolen, and phishing was recognized by CertiK as probably the most damaging rip-off class of 2024, accounting for greater than $1 billion in losses.
U.S. authorities reported that Individuals misplaced roughly $9.3 billion to crypto funding scams in 2024, a pointy year-over-year improve.
— Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews) December 17, 2025
Lawmakers have additionally responded. U.S. Senators Elissa Slotkin and Jerry Moran just lately launched the SAFE Crypto Act, proposi
The put up CZ Needs to ‘Eradicate’ Deal with Poisoning After Large $50M Loss appeared first on Cryptonews.