An Etherscan user with the nickname Nima received more than 89 “Address Watch Alert” notifications after two stablecoin transfers, prompting Etherscan to analyze why such campaigns are now being carried out on an industrial scale.
The analysis showed that the surge is linked to address poisoning attacks, which automatically insert similar-looking addresses into a wallet’s transaction history. These schemes have been used for several years, but they now operate at an industrial scale and are almost fully automated.
Scale Of The Attacks
A study of activity from July 2022 to June 2024 recorded about 17M address poisoning attempts. They affected approximately 1.3M Ethereum users and resulted in confirmed losses of at least $79.3M.
Attackers monitor the blockchain, identify active addresses, automatically generate similar character combinations, and send poisoned transactions. In some cases, competing groups send several variants almost simultaneously, trying to be the first to embed a fake address in the wallet’s history.
Impact Of The Fusaka Upgrade
The Fusaka upgrade, activated on December 3, 2025, reduced fees on the network. Over the 90 days following the launch, the average number of transactions increased by 30 percent, and the number of new addresses rose by 78 percent.
At the same time, dust transfers increased sharply. Transactions with USDT below $0.01 rose from 4.2M to 29.9M (+612 percent). A similar increase was recorded for USDC (+473 percent), DAI (+470 percent), and Ether (+62 percent). The lower transaction costs made it easier to send large volumes of microtransactions, which are used in address substitution schemes.
Etherscan Recommendations
The platform encouraged users to always verify the recipient’s address before sending funds. Available tools include private tags, ENS domain support, an address book, and the Address Highlight feature, which highlights similar addresses and warns about suspicious transfers.
Etherscan reminded users that transactions cannot be reversed on the blockchain, so verifying details remains the key way to reduce risk.