Trader Loses $50M in Address Poisoning Scam
A high-value trader suffered a $50 million loss in an address poisoning scam, according to reports, after scammers replaced a genuine wallet address with a visually similar one during a large transfer. Address poisoning — exploiting homoglyphs and lookalike character swaps — remains an effective social-engineering tactic that can bypass casual visual checks, especially in desktop or copy-paste flows.
The breach highlights acute risks for institutional and large transfers and puts pressure on exchanges, custodians, and wallet providers to implement anti-poisoning safeguards. Users are advised to adopt stricter controls such as address whitelists, mandatory multi-channel verification for large withdrawals, small test transfers, hardware wallet confirmations, and clearer UI warnings about similar addresses. Broader adoption of on-chain name services and automated address validation could reduce incidence, but operators must prioritize UX and security to prevent further high-value losses.