Web3 dupery detector Scam Sniffer recently brought the crypto community’s attention to a transaction on the Solana blockchain. A user fell victim to an address-poisoning attack, resulting in a massive loss of over $2.9 million in PYTH tokens.
An address poisoning attack is a crypto scam where scammers study a target’s transaction patterns, identify frequently used addresses, and generate similar-looking addresses. They then send a small amount from the fake address to the target. When the target sends funds in the future, they may mistakenly send them to the scammer’s phony address, resulting in financial loss.
Nearly $3M Lost
The crypto user fell victim to the address poisoning scam by transferring 7 million PYTH tokens to a fake address (4yfuQ…jizcY) that was similar to a legitimate Binance account address (4yfu4…gnhY) they had frequently transacted with.
The user’s last transaction with the genuine address occurred just 2 days before the incident. The target may have fallen into the scam by copying the fake address from the wallet app transaction history instead of using the correct address from their Binance app. This was possible as the fake address had sent a small amount of SOL immediately after the target’s last legitimate transaction.
The stolen 7 million PYTH tokens have now been swapped for 11,016.14 SOL and are currently sitting in the address 3eFh8Nj6fssiXdC7Me6qmKq5Pf9vvq9rCyEdRgSEZNyt. This suggests that the scammer may attempt to launder the stolen funds in the future. Meanwhile, analysts predict a surge in SOL’s value, potentially increasing the scammer’s illicit gains.
A Rare Case Brings Hope
Interestingly, There seems to be a glimmer of hope for the user who lost PYTH tokens. Another user who accidentally sent $129 million to a phishing address this November had their funds returned by the scammer within an hour. The unusual act suggests the likelihood that the current scammer may also return the stolen funds.
As address poisoning attacks are on the rise alongside other crypto scams, users need to exercise caution when handling crypto transactions and copy-paste addresses from reputable sources. Additionally, double-checking accounts before signing transactions is crucial, as these blockchain transactions are immutable and cannot be reversed.
