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Tether Blocks Scammer’s Address After They Stole $20 Million USDT

2 mins
Updated by Geraint Price
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In Brief

  • Tether blocks funds of a scammer who stole 20 million USDT using a zero-transfer attack, securing the funds within an hour.
  • The scam involved tricking users into sending USDT to a phishing address that closely resembled the original one.
  • The swift action by Tether has sparked curiosity about the possible identity of the victim of zero-transfer attack.
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Tether, the issuer of the stablecoin USDT, has taken quick action blocking the funds of a zero-transfer scammer.

Scammers are always ready to steal funds when a user makes the slightest mistake. Hence, blockchain users need to pay full attention while making a transaction on-chain.

Tether Scammer Tricked User Into Sending USDT to Phishing Address

According to the blockchain security firm PeckShieldAlert, a scammer stole 20 million USDT from 0x407e through the zero-transfer attack. 

Most zero-transfer attacks have a similar modus operandi. First, the scammers trick the users into sending a $0 transaction to a phishing address similar to an address where the victim frequently transfers the funds.

Read our detailed guide on the 15 most common crypto scams here.

Most users check the wallet address’s first few digits and the last few digits, ignoring the complete address. That is why scammers are able to outsmart the victims with a phishing address that looks similar to the original address at first glance.

The image below shows that the original and phishing addresses’ first five and last three digits are the same.

Image highlighting the similarity between the original address and Tether hackers' address
Image highlighting the similarity between the original address and the scammers’ address

In this case, the Tether scammer tricked the victim into making transactions worth 0 USDT to a phishing address. And lastly, when the user was trying to make an actual transaction, they mistook the phishing address as the original.

Screenshot highlighting the zero-transfer attack. Source: X
Screenshot highlighting the zero-transfer attack. Source: X (Twitter)

ZachXBT Curious About Victim’s Identity

On the brighter side, Tether proactively froze the stolen funds by putting the USDT scammers’ addresses on a blacklist within just one hour. Tether’s quick action has made the on-chain sleuth ZachXBT curious about the victim’s identity.

Another X user shared a similar opinion to that of ZachXBT. They wrote:

“Same, Tether takes days to do that after obvious hacks but was acted here extremely quickly.”

The community members’ discussion points to the possibility that the victimized wallet owner could be someone influential or some large firm.  

Got something to say about Tether scammer getting blocked or anything else? Write to us or join the discussion on our Telegram channel. You can also catch us on TikTok, Facebook, or X (Twitter).

For BeInCrypto’s latest Bitcoin (BTC) analysis, click here.

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Harsh Notariya
Harsh Notariya is an Editorial Standards Lead at BeInCrypto, who also writes about various topics, including decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN), tokenization, crypto airdrops, decentralized finance (DeFi), meme coins, and altcoins. Before joining BeInCrypto, he was a community consultant at Totality Corp, specializing in the metaverse and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Additionally, Harsh was a blockchain content writer and researcher at Financial Funda, where he created...
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