The sufferer first despatched a $50 check to the proper handle earlier than the attacker’s look-alike handle captured the complete switch.
Scammer transformed stolen USDT to DAI inside minutes, blocking any potential Tether freeze motion.
Funds are being laundered by way of Twister Money, a mixing service that obscures transaction trails.
Related $70M handle poisoning case in Could 2024 resulted in 90% restoration after sufferer negotiated on-chain with attacker.
Dec. 20 (Crypto-Information.internet) – A crypto dealer misplaced practically $50 million in USDT after falling sufferer to an handle poisoning assault on Dec. 19, with the stolen funds already transformed to an unfreezable stablecoin and routed via mixing protocols.
The attacker drained 49,999,950 USDT from a pockets that had been energetic for 2 years and funded via Binance, in keeping with safety agency Web3 Antivirus. The sufferer had despatched a $50 check transaction to the meant recipient handle earlier than transferring the complete quantity to a fraudulent look-alike handle that the scammer had planted within the pockets’s transaction historical past.
Tackle poisoning works by sending small quantities of cryptocurrency from addresses designed to imitate authentic ones. On-chain information present the scammer’s handle shared the identical first 4 and final 4 characters because the sufferer’s meant vacation spot. The sufferer copied the spoofed handle from their transaction historical past as an alternative of the proper one.
Speedy Conversion Blocks Restoration
Inside minutes of receiving the stolen funds, the attacker swapped the USDT for 49,533,438 DAI utilizing a decentralized alternate. In contrast to USDT, which Tether can freeze on-chain, DAI is a decentralized stablecoin with no central issuer able to blocking transfers.
Tether has frozen over $2.7 billion in USDT to this point in cooperation with legislation enforcement, however the speedy conversion left no window for intervention.
Funds Traced to Twister Money
The stolen funds are actually being laundered via Twister Money, a mixing protocol that obscures transaction trails, in keeping with blockchain analytics agency Arkham Intelligence.
The incident represents only one class of escalating threats dealing with crypto holders in 2025. Whereas handle poisoning exploits digital transaction histories, bodily “wrench assaults” involving kidnapping and extortion have additionally doubled this yr, demonstrating that criminals are concentrating on crypto wealth via each technical and violent means.
Restoration Stays Unlikely
The theft mirrors a Could 2024 incident the place a sufferer misplaced $70 million in wrapped Bitcoin to deal with poisoning. In that case, the sufferer efficiently negotiated with the attacker utilizing blockchain messaging, providing a ten% bounty and recovering roughly 90% of the funds.
Nonetheless, with the present sufferer’s funds already transformed to DAI and partially blended via Twister Money, blockchain analysts contemplate restoration unlikely. The sufferer has not made any public assertion.
Sources
Web3 Antivirus X Publish – Authentic discovery, assault sequence particulars, sufferer pockets profile URL: https://x.com/web3_antivirus/standing/2002043421368693140
Etherscan Transaction Document – Actual stolen quantity (49,999,950 USDT), scammer handle, fund conversion particulars, timestamp (Dec-19-2025 04:01:23 PM UTC) URL: https://etherscan.io/tx/0x40c3071839bcfba2623fe9e419bcaaf667b6570489d04d194f106282202de077
Arkham Intelligence Visualizer – Fund movement monitoring, laundering pathway evaluation URL: https://intel.arkm.com/visualizer/entity/0x7A1bEe3d53BF70861eF6C0652c63B206ea8fdE76
Protos Article – Assault methodology particulars, sufferer pockets provenance (2-year historical past, Binance funding), $70M prior case comparability URL: https://protos.com/crypto-trader-loses-50m-usdt-to-address-poisoning-scam/
