Jameson Lopp Identifies 48,000 Bitcoin Address ‘Poisonings’

Since July 2023, 48,000 cryptocurrency address spoofing attacks have been identified on the Bitcoin blockchain. This was reported by Casa co-founder and CTO Jameson Lopp.

An example of a successful attack involved a transaction where a user sent 0.1 BTC to a scammer’s address, and then transferred the same amount to the correct address 12 hours later.

According to Lopp, the victim’s wallet contained 8 BTC, which could have led to significant losses.

In an address ‘poisoning’ attack, victims receive small transactions that mimic frequently used wallets. When users copy an address from their transaction history, they might inadvertently send funds to a scammer.

The increase in attacks is facilitated by the low fees in the Bitcoin network, observed since July 2024.

Cheap transfers allow attackers to conduct mass attacks with minimal costs. An increase in fees could reduce the frequency of such manipulations, Lopp stated at the MIT Bitcoin Expo.

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The expert believes the issue can be addressed with wallet alerts. Programs could automatically detect suspicious addresses and warn users before sending funds.

Back on February 26, a user lost over $760,000 in a single transaction due to address ‘poisoning’.

On March 19, Cyvers analysts reported that since the beginning of the month, victims of cryptocurrency address spoofing scams had voluntarily sent over $1.2 million to fraudsters.