3.5 billion cleared in one second! Top crypto industry figures fall for the laziest operation, and the entire network is waiting for the hacker's reply.

In the crypto world, if you have 50 million USD (about 360 million RMB), how do you think you would lose it? Encounter a hacking attack? Or a exchange collapse?

Neither. Recently, a “super whale” in the crypto space staged a priceless tragedy for the entire network: losing this huge sum, it took him less than a few minutes, and the cause was actually a mistake we all can make — laziness.

The deadly “Copy and Paste”

This whale was about to make a large transfer of nearly 50 million USDT. As an experienced “veteran,” he consciously did a “test run” first: he transferred 50 USDT to the target address to confirm the funds arrived successfully.

But he didn’t know that, in the transparent world of on-chain data, a group of “phishers” was drooling over this huge sum.

The hacker, upon seeing the test transfer, immediately launched a deadly move — “address poisoning.” The hacker used a program to generate a highly similar address, with the first few and last few characters identical to the real recipient address.

Then, the hacker transferred 0.005 USDT of “dust funds” into the whale’s wallet. This way, the fake high-similarity address appeared openly in the whale’s “transaction history.”

When the whale was about to transfer the remaining over 49 million USDT, he made that fatal mistake: to save time, he didn’t double-check the target address but directly copied the top address from the history record that looked “exactly the same.”

Paste, confirm, send. Within seconds, 350 million RMB directly fell into the hacker’s pocket.

Seamless “Money Laundering Art”

The calmness and professionalism after the hacker’s success are chilling. In less than a day, this money was whitewashed in a textbook manner:

Instantly swap stablecoins: quickly exchange USDT for another stablecoin DAI (to prevent freezing by the issuer, Tether).

Diversify risk: convert all funds into over 16,000 Ethereum (ETH) and quickly transfer to two carefully prepared intermediate wallets.

“Mixer” invisibility: use privacy protocols to split and wash all these ETH, disappearing into the vast chain fog.

The entire process was smooth and continuous, clearly well-prepared.

Latest “Ultimatum”: $1 million for a new lease on life?

Just in the past two days, there has been an update on this tragedy. The heavily damaged victim wrote an open letter to the hacker on-chain, roughly as follows:

"Bro, I’ve already reported to the police. Now law enforcement, security agencies, and major protocols are watching you. We have some clues, and your wallet is monitored 24/7.

Now I give you 48 hours: return 98% of the money. The remaining $1 million is my ‘white hat bounty’ (legitimate reward). If you cooperate, everyone stays safe; if not, see you in court, worldwide wanted."

This letter caused a huge reaction in the community. Some think it’s the victim “firing a smoke screen” to scare the hacker, while others believe this is the hacker’s only “chance to go ashore.”

A lesson for everyone: don’t trust your eyes blindly

This “50 million USD tuition fee” teaches us a few brutal truths:

Address poisoning is a “psychological warfare”: hackers bet that you won’t check the middle dozens of garbled characters. As long as the start and end match, most people will just click confirm.

History records are untrustworthy: never copy addresses from transaction history! That’s the easiest place for hackers to manipulate.

Slow is fast: when dealing with large assets, spending an extra minute to verify every character could save you 50 million.

Don’t let “laziness” become a hacker’s withdrawal password

The 48-hour countdown has already started. Will the hacker walk away with $1 million and escape, or choose to go on the run with $50 million? We’ll see.

But for ordinary users, remember: in the world of digital assets, there is only “absolute caution,” not “foolproof experience.” **$ETH **$BTC