Coldcard Users Have Lost Nearly $114M in Bitcoin — Here's What's Behind the Surge in Small Transfer Scams
(60 days ago) · 1 source · Summarized by CryptoBipto
Losses associated with Coldcard hardware wallets have climbed to nearly $114 million, driven by a spike in small Bitcoin transfers that appear to be part of address poisoning or dusting attacks. Scammers send tiny amounts of BTC from lookalike addresses, hoping users will accidentally copy a fraudulent address when making future transactions. The trend highlights growing sophistication in social engineering attacks targeting self-custody users.
WHY IT MATTERS
Imagine you have a physical mailbox, and a scammer starts sending you letters with a return address that looks almost identical to your bank's address — just one digit off. If you're not paying close attention and you mail a check to that address, your money goes to the scammer instead of your bank. That's essentially what's happening here with Bitcoin. Attackers send tiny amounts of Bitcoin to hardware wallet users from addresses designed to look like ones the user already trusts. When the user later copies what they think is a familiar address from their transaction history, they might accidentally send their Bitcoin to the scammer. A 'hardware wallet' like Coldcard is a physical device that stores your crypto offline for security — think of it like a personal vault. But even the best vault can't protect you if you accidentally hand your money to the wrong person. This story is a reminder that in crypto, being your own bank means you also have to be your own fraud department.
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