According to blockchain security firm Cyvers Alert, an anonymous crypto trader suffered a staggering loss of 1,155 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), equivalent to $70.5 million, due to an address poisoning scam. This incident has been described by Meir Dolev, the founder and CTO of Cyvers, as "probably the highest value lost due to an address-poisoning scam."

Address poisoning is a deceptive tactic employed by malicious entities to exploit crypto traders, drawing victims into transferring digital assets to fraudulent addresses owned by scammers. This nefarious scheme involves creating addresses that closely resemble the target's, using identical starting and ending characters to deceive unsuspecting victims.

Subsequently, scammers execute a crypto transfer from the newly fabricated matching address to the target's wallet, contaminating the transaction history. The victim, unaware of the deception, inadvertently copies the tainted address from the transaction log instead of referencing their records, leading to funds being directed into the hacker's wallet.

This type of attack has become increasingly prevalent in the cryptocurrency industry, with Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of Binance, highlighting a similar incident last year. Zhao noted the sophistication of scammers, who generate addresses with matching starting and ending letters, which is a common point of verification for most people when conducting crypto transfers. Additionally, many wallets obscure the middle part of the address with ellipses to improve the user interface, further facilitating the success of such scams.