Crypto User Loses $50M in One Copy-Paste Mistake – Address Poisoning Scam

Ah, the grand theater of cryptocurrency, where fortunes can rise and fall with the flick of a finger! Here we have a tale that would make even the most stoic soul weep-a crypto user, in a fit of misguided confidence, has relinquished nearly $50 million in USDT to the crafty hands of a scammer. Yes, you heard it right! A single copy-paste blunder, a mistake so simple yet so devastating, it’s now etched in the annals of crypto misadventures.

How the $50 Million Transfer Went Wrong

Picture this: our protagonist, ever so prudent, initiates a transfer with the utmost caution. A mere 50 USDT is dispatched as a test transaction to their own wallet address-an act of wisdom, one might say. But the shadows lurked nearby, as scammers, like hungry wolves, watched with gleaming eyes.

In a nefarious twist, the villain crafted a counterfeit wallet address, a mirror image of the victim’s own, save for just a few characters. Crafty, isn’t it? Just like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, but instead, it’s a wallet full of ill-gotten gains! 🎩✨

A victim (0xcB80) lost $50M due to a copy-paste address mistake.

Before transferring 50M $USDT, the victim sent 50 $USDT as a test to his own address 0xbaf4b1aF…B6495F8b5.

The scammer immediately spoofed a wallet with the same first and last 4 characters and performed an…

– Lookonchain (@lookonchain) December 20, 2025

With a sly grin, the scammer made small transactions to the victim’s address, embedding their deceiving address into the transaction history. Ah, the art of deception, the very essence of address poisoning scams!

The Costly Copy-Paste Error

And then came the fatal moment. Our unwitting hero, with all the confidence of a sailor on calm seas, copied the address straight from the transaction history, believing it to be safe. Little did they know, a treacherous imposter awaited. In the blink of an eye, 49,999,950 USDT vanished into the abyss, sent directly to the scammer’s lair! 💸💨

Blockchain transactions, unyielding as stone, left no room for remorse or recovery, sealing the fate of those lost funds like a tombstone marking a grave-forever gone!

Why Address Poisoning Scams Are So Dangerous

This form of trickery, known as address poisoning, does not require the dark arts of hacking wallets or stealing private keys. No, it preys upon our very nature, exploiting our habits and the limitations of wallet designs. How often do we only glance at the beginning and end of an address, trusting in its apparent integrity? The scammers know this all too well! 🕵️‍♂️🔍

Lookonchain illustrates this deceit vividly, revealing how a stream of small transfers led our victim astray, like breadcrumbs leading to a dark, foreboding forest.

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2025-12-20 09:34