Address Poisoning

Address poisoning is a scam that exploits the habit of copying wallet addresses from transaction history. The attacker generates an address whose first and last characters match one you recently used, then sends you a tiny or zero-value transfer so that lookalike address appears in your history. Later, when you copy an address from that list without checking the middle characters, the funds go to the attacker instead of your intended recipient. It is sometimes called address spoofing or a dust transfer scam. Because on-chain transfers cannot be reversed, the loss is usually permanent. The defence is procedural: verify the full address, not just the ends, use a saved address book or whitelist for repeat destinations, and send a small test amount before a large transfer.