Address poisoning is a crypto scam that needs neither your password nor your keys. The attacker creates an address whose beginning and end resemble an address you often send money to — for example your casino deposit address or exchange address. Then they send a zero-value or trivial transaction to your wallet from that address. The fake address appears in your transaction history next to the real one.
How the trap works
Many wallets and block explorers show only the beginning and end of an address, for example "TQ4x…9fK2". If next time you copy the address from your history rather than from the casino cashier, you may copy the attacker's. The transaction is irreversible and the money goes to the attacker. The scam is especially common with TRC-20 and ERC-20 stablecoins, because transactions are cheap and amounts large.
Signs you are being targeted
- Transactions you did not make appear in your history, often with an amount of 0 or a very small amount.
- The sender's address looks almost like your usual recipient.
- Unknown tokens appear whose name resembles USDT or USDC.
How to protect yourself
- Always copy the address from the source: from the casino cashier or the exchange's deposit page, fresh every time.
- Check the whole address, not just the beginning and end. At least six characters from the middle.
- Use the wallet's address book, where you save checked addresses by name, and on an exchange the withdrawal whitelist.
- Ignore unknown tokens. Do not try to sell or "return" them — that may require a malicious signature.
- On the first send to a new address, send a small test amount.
What to do if money went to the wrong address
Check in a block explorer by TXID where the money went. If the recipient is the attacker's address, the transaction cannot be reversed. A stablecoin issuer can sometimes freeze a criminal's address, but this is rare and requires an official request, usually through the police. Report the case to the police and keep the evidence. More types of scam: crypto scams targeting casino players.