Ethereum active addresses surge to 80 million? Researchers warn: may be related to address poisoning attacks

January 20 News, the Ethereum network has recently seen a significant surge in several core metrics, attracting high market attention. However, security researcher Andrey Sergeenkov pointed out that this spike in network activity may not be entirely due to genuine user growth, and a considerable portion could be related to “address poisoning attacks.”

Data shows that in the past month, the number of active Ethereum addresses nearly doubled to close to 8 million; daily transaction counts also increased simultaneously, reaching nearly 2.9 million, setting a new record. Sergeenkov analyzed that, starting from January 12, within one week, newly created addresses increased by about 2.7 million, approximately 170% higher than normal levels, while daily transaction volume remained above 2.5 million for several days.

He pointed out that on the surface, this seems to be a sign of accelerated expansion of the Ethereum ecosystem, but closer inspection reveals that some transaction patterns are more consistent with address poisoning attack characteristics. Address poisoning involves attackers using wallet addresses that closely resemble real addresses to send tiny transfers, tricking users into copying transaction addresses and mistakenly transferring funds to attacker-controlled addresses.

The recent surge in such attacks is closely related to Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade completed in December 2025. After the upgrade, network fees dropped by over 60% within a few weeks, significantly reducing the cost of executing large-scale spam transactions. Sergeenkov bluntly stated that this makes address poisoning “extremely cost-effective” for attackers.

To verify this, he focused on analyzing wallets whose first stablecoin transfer was less than $1 and identified multiple “small coin distribution” clusters. Some addresses repeatedly sent small transfers to over 10,000 recipients, and a single wallet reached more than 400,000 addresses. As of now, at least 116 victims have been confirmed to have lost over $740,000 as a result.

This phenomenon also reveals the double-edged sword effect of blockchain scalability. Lower Gas fees improve Ethereum’s usability and development efficiency, but at the same time, they lower the threshold for network abuse. Sergeenkov emphasized that growth in active addresses and transaction volume alone cannot accurately measure the true health of the Ethereum network; risk alerts and security protections at the wallet level need to be strengthened urgently.

Meanwhile, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently stated in an article that 2026 will become a new phase centered on user autonomy and security. He believes that the future development of Ethereum will no longer focus solely on scale but will aim to improve efficiency while ensuring a balance between user experience and asset security.