I am new in the crypto world; that's why I am worried about fund transactions. I always check the receiving address again and again. Now I am thinking about how an old user made this big mistake. I think he or she was overconfident. I am shocked to see the news.

We have to be careful when sending funds to someone else. If you need to send a small fund to the receiver, then check by call or message to ensure the original person received it, then send the target fund.

I learned lesson from this post. Thanks to you.

If the victim had already copied the address when he was performing the test transaction, how come the address was changed when sending the bulk transaction because I don't think he will copy again the second time since what he copied is still in the console? Does it mean the attackers have the means of changing what have been copied? I have been a victim of this scam in the past so I know that the cannot change what has been copied unless you copy the wrong address why you try copying for the second time.

If that's really the case, then this thread has done enough already

Everyone can fall victim of address poisoning or other attacks, but considering that he had 50M in crypto and that chances are he did not know how to keep the secret, he was the perfect target. Not that the rest of us with our little savings are free of risk, but I think that these whales, sharks or dolphins (I don't know 50M in which category falls) are at more risk than mere shrimps like us. And yet, you'll do well to take precautions early on and get into the habit of checking addresses several times before hitting send.

Essentially, a poisoning attack exploits the negligence of someone, who doesn't carefully check the address of a transaction they are about to make. I suspect poisoning attacks are aimed at users who have already been targeted, or tracked. Maybe, crypto owners with only a small amount of crypto in their wallets won't be targeted. Nevertheless, we need to be careful with every transaction we make, especially large-value transactions. We shouldn't be careless, and we need to double-check every detail before confirming the transaction.

By the way, these cases has happened before, and it might happen again someday (I don't expect it) if someone continues to neglect to check carefully beforehand.

Last year, around 2024, a similar case occurred, and the losses were much larger. Here it is :



Source : x.com

Scammers will always exist because they'll always find victims, change tactics and spice up their techniques to keep scamming more and more people. Similar scams with addresses (copy-paste scam, I don't remember how it was called but would change your clipboard address into theirs) have existed since the early days. That's pure robbery and I feel sorry for the victim, losing such a great amount of money is insane and I don't know how someone could cope with it. This is a lesson for the rest of us to be extremely cautious when conducting any transaction.

He recopied it again after the test transaction, reason to that is not known but there’s a lot of possibility, e.g not all OS have the clipboard history feature unless managed by another software, so we could assume he might override the copied address  probably due to copying the TXID or any other stuffs and just need to recopy the address on next attempt .

Hence, since he received a new deposit ( from the poisoning address) within that time frame then it must have taken a little bit of time for him to make the second transaction( out )..

But still , address can be replaced in a clipboard by a malware so… don’t trust , always verify.

After reading what the OP and others said I was a little bit confused, because I haven't heard nor seen such a thing before, I'm just hearing it for the first time. So in other for me to be more clear on what wallet poisoning is all about, and how it works, I carried out some few research, and after reading through some sources I came to understand what wallet poisoning is all about and how it works, as in how someone can be able to poison your wallet and steal your funds.

Now this is how it works, since cryptocurrency transactions are been recorded on a blockchain, the person who want to poison your wallet will check the blockchain to find out the wallet you usually send funds to. And after that the attacker will now created a wallet address that look similar to the wallet you usually send funds to. Then the attacker will now send small amount of crypto to your wallet, so that his or her fake wallet will now appear in your transaction history, then next you copy the wallet address you we then copy the wrong one thinking that it's the trust one, why it is not, and end up send funds to the attacker wallet address, because the two wallets will look alike making you think that you're copying the trusted wallet. So to be on the safer side avoid copying wallet address from your transaction history if you don't want to be a victim of this wallet poisoning.

Scammers and thieves (those who want to easily get what doesn't belong to them) have always existed (and will always exist). Cryptocurrencies allow them to enrich themselves unfairly due to the irreversibility of transactions and the "easy access" of BTC-owners, given that they are sole owners (which makes them vulnerable, as it's enough to deceive one owner, not the entire bank's security service, for example).

1st, you need to weed out scammers and not fall for their bait. 2nd, carefully check BTC-addresses for accuracy before any transaction. 3rd, buy a HW device.

Phones are certainly a poor storage option. Laptops and PCs are acceptable storage options if you take appropriate protective measures.

PC + hardware wallet - the most reliable storage method.

Though also I feel sorry, but I'm just wondering how he earned that money. It's kind of stupid behaviour when sending such a big amount; it's just not about double-checking the address. For me, I will check each and every letter of the address before confirming the transaction. Of course, even if I send a big amount, I try with a small amount, whether it's a hardware wallet or a software wallet. I won't let my funds be lost this way. Because I work hard to earn money, so I have to be very careful when sending funds.

I was surprised when I read this thread; still, people don't take it seriously about handling their funds. It doesn't matter what wallet we have been using; it's a matter of laziness. Otherwise, without multiple checking, the funds shouldn't be sent from my wallet, especially when it's big. That's the reason why we need to learn before earning. Otherwise your hard earnings will be lost this way. Hope the forum users will take a lesson from that thread, though it has been discussed multiple times.