Behind 2.9 million Ethereum transactions: Address poisoning reveals false prosperity

2026-01-20 10:52:15

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【ChainNews】Ethereum’s on-chain activity has been very lively recently. Daily transaction volume hit a new high of 2.9 million transactions, indicating explosive network activity. But if you look closely at ETH prices, they remain relatively flat. Why is that?

Digging into the data reveals the truth—large-scale “address poisoning” attacks are causing trouble. Studies show that 80% of the abnormal growth in new addresses is actually related to stablecoins. Even more concerning, 67% of new active addresses’ first transactions are less than $1, which is a classic “dust attack” tactic.

What’s going on? Attackers use smart contracts to airdrop tiny amounts of stablecoins to hundreds of thousands of addresses. It seems harmless but actually pollutes users’ transaction histories. The most aggressive tactic is inducing users to mistakenly transfer large sums to fake addresses that look very similar—high address similarity makes it easy to click the wrong one.

Data speaks: about 3.86 million addresses’ first stablecoin transactions received this kind of “poison dust.” This low-cost attack has been able to scale largely because, since the Fusaka upgrade in early December last year, Ethereum transaction fees have dropped significantly, giving bad actors an opportunity.

So returning to the initial question—the record high in transaction volume is largely inflated by spam transactions. This diminishes the usefulness of transaction volume as a signal of network demand growth. No wonder the market hasn’t taken it as a positive catalyst for ETH price.

ETH-6,86%

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TokenomicsDetective

· 7h ago

2.9 million transactions are just false prosperity; I've been tired of this trick for a long time. Dust attacks are so rampant that it's really hard to defend against them. Address poisoning, to put it plainly, is just polluting the purity of the chain's data. No wonder ETH's price hasn't reacted much; everyone sees through it. 67% of new addresses' first transfers are less than $1? This is obviously a robot army spamming, and they still dare to call it record-breaking trading volume. That's hilarious. 80% of new addresses are related to stablecoins. This data is really heartbreaking. It feels like the entire ecosystem has been polluted. How many truly active users are there? The tactic of inducing mis-transfers to fake addresses, the attackers are really dedicated. So many people are being tricked; security awareness needs to be improved.

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GateUser-addcaaf7

· 7h ago

2.9 million transaction results, and this is it? I already said that on-chain data is full of water; all the activity metrics are fake.

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BagHolderTillRetire

· 7h ago

2.9 million transaction records look good, but where is the real activity? It's all been poisoned and smashed out; this trick is indeed brilliant.

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WalletDetective

· 7h ago

2.9 million transactions sound impressive, but it turns out to be data poisoned and artificially inflated. This trick is getting more and more basic. --- It's the same false prosperity story again—daily new all-time high trading volumes, but why are prices still falling? Wake up. --- Someone should have already taken action against address poisoning. Are 80% of new addresses really this scam? I just can't believe it. --- Dust attacks are unstoppable. Sending funds to the wrong address can result in large losses, who can handle that? --- With so much water in the data, I have lost all confidence in on-chain activity metrics. --- 386,000 addresses poisoned—how disgusting is that? Every wallet is contaminated. --- Low-cost attacks with high damage—attackers are really thoughtful, and we users are the ones who suffer. --- The real reason for the surge in trading volume: 80% is garbage data. I’ve suspected this for a long time. --- It seems I need to learn how to distinguish real activity from fake, or else I’ll keep falling into data traps. --- Smart contracts being used for this purpose—fortunately, it didn't cause a complete collapse.

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