.Fusaka Upgrade Fuels Record Address‑Poisoning Surge on Ethereum
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Ethereum’s most recent protocol upgrade, dubbed Fusaka, slashed on‑chain gas prices by roughly sixfold, pushing the average transaction fee below one US dollar. While the move was hailed as a milestone for user‑experience and adoption—particularly for stablecoin activity that recently topped $7.5 trillion in a single quarter—the same reduction appears to have opened the door to a new wave of “address‑poisoning” scams.
What the data shows
Blockchain researcher Andrey Sergeenkov analysed dust‑transfer activity across 101 tokens between 1 September 2025 and 13 February 2026. His findings reveal a stark before‑and‑after picture:
| Period | Avg. daily dust transactions* | Peak daily volume | Reported loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre‑Fusaka (Sept 2025‑Jan 2026) | ~30 000 | – | $4.9 M |
| Post‑Fusaka (Feb‑Mar 2026) | ~167 000 | 510 000 (Jan 2026) | $63 M |
*Dust transactions are micro‑payments (often a few wei) sent to a large number of addresses that mimic a victim’s legitimate contacts. When a user copies the wrong address from their wallet history, the tiny amount can be swapped for a full balance, leaving the original funds inaccessible.
A single USDT theft on 19 December 2025—in which attackers moved $50 M—accounted for a sizable share of the post‑upgrade losses. Even when that outlier is removed, total thefts still total $13.3 M, more than double the pre‑upgrade amount.
Why cheaper gas matters
The core of the issue is economics. Prior to Fusaka, the cost of sending thousands of dust‑transactions was prohibitive for malicious actors. After the upgrade, the fee per transaction dropped to a few cents, turning mass‑scale address‑poisoning into a viable “lottery” strategy: bots blast millions of tiny transfers in hopes that a few will land on an address the victim later re‑uses.
Leon Waidmann, head of research at Lisk, highlighted the paradox in a recent X post (18 Feb 2026): while Ethereum enjoys record network usage and ultra‑low fees, the market price of ETH remains disconnected from these fundamentals. The surge in cheap spam underscores the hidden security costs that can accompany fee reductions.
Industry response
Sergeenkov cautions that fee‑optimisation should not outpace security planning. “Reducing transaction costs is valuable, but the accompanying attack surface must be mitigated before deployment,” he wrote. The Ethereum Foundation, which has framed its roadmap around “trillion‑dollar security,” now faces pressure to address these vectors—potentially through protocol‑level anti‑spam mechanisms, improved address‑verification standards, or wallet‑side heuristics.
Key takeaways
- Fusaka’s fee cuts have enabled a >500 % jump in daily dust‑transaction volume, with a peak of over half a million in a single day.
- Financial impact is already significant: victims have lost more than $63 M in the first two months after the upgrade, a 13‑fold increase versus the comparable prior period.
- Single‑large thefts (e.g., the $50 M USDT raid) can skew loss figures, but even without outliers the overall damage has risen sharply.
- Security‑vs‑usability trade‑off is now front‑and‑center for the Ethereum community; future upgrades will likely need built‑in spam‑mitigation or tighter wallet safeguards.
- Monitoring & education: users should verify addresses before sending, use wallet features that flag unknown contacts, and consider utilizing address‑whitelisting tools where available.
Outlook
The Fusaka upgrade demonstrates that protocol improvements can have unintended side effects. As Ethereum continues to chase low‑fee, high‑throughput goals, stakeholders—from developers to end‑users—must adapt to a landscape where cheaper transactions may also empower malicious actors. The next wave of Ethereum research and governance will likely focus on balancing these dynamics, ensuring that the network’s growth does not come at the expense of user safety.
Source: https://thedefiant.io/news/blockchains/fusaka-upgrade-fuels-record-address-poisoning-on-ethereum
