11 Years Quiet. Scammers Weren't.

The real news

The story, straight

An Ethereum wallet is an app-controlled account for sending and receiving ether, the network's currency. Its payment address works like an account number.

Transfers appear on a public record, so scammers can watch money move.

According to CoinDesk, a wallet first funded at Ethereum's July 2015 launch made its first outgoing transfer on 9 November 2026: 0.05 ether, worth about $106, sent as a test.

Within 3 minutes, lookalike addresses began sending tiny payments back to the old wallet. The safety check had also rung the dinner bell.

The trick is called address poisoning. Wallet apps often shorten addresses to their opening and closing characters.

Scammers create addresses with matching ends, then plant tiny transfers in your history. They hope you copy their address instead of the intended recipient's.

Imagine a fake account number wearing the correct hat and shoes.

The busier lookalike sent 43 tiny payments. It was a very committed audition for a robbery that never happened.

The owner took another precaution: the receiving wallet sent 0.01 ether onward, and nearly all returned. Then, 38 minutes after the initial test, the old wallet sent 2,154.94 ether, about $4.6 million, to the correct address.

Nothing was stolen.

The useful lesson: a successful test doesn't make every later address safe. Compare the complete destination against a trusted source, not merely a recent-history entry.

Your clipboard has no fraud department.

Repost this so the fake-moustache account numbers get less work.

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