43% of transactions contained transfers of less than $1, and 38% were for amounts less than one cent, the authors of the study found. Such transfers have no economic value and serve to 'seed wallets,' the specialists explained. The goal of such attacks is to make the user accidentally copy an incorrect address when making a transaction and transfer funds to the fraudsters.
On average, 11% of all transactions in Ethereum are now related to the transfer of micro amounts in stablecoins, with 26% of active addresses participating in such operations daily. The daily number of wallets involved in 'crypto dust activity' is estimated to range from 250,000 to 350,000.
For comparison, before the Fusaka update, the share of 'dust transactions' with stablecoins accounted for 3-5% of the total number of operations in the network, while the share of active addresses was 15-20%. After the update, the figures rose to 10-15% and 25-35%, respectively, Coin Metrics reported. 57% of balance updates are still related to transfers over $1.
The reason for the increase in 'dust operations' is that the Fusaka update reduced the cost of transactions in the network by optimizing data processing at the chain level. As a result, the average number of daily operations exceeded 2 million: in mid-January, the figure nearly reached 2.9 million. The number of active addresses also increased: now there are 1.4 million per day, which is 60% more than previous averages.
Security researcher Andrey Sergeenkov noted a sharp increase in the number of new wallets: during the week starting January 12, their number increased by 170%. In his opinion, this is directly related to the wave of attacks for 'address infection' that unfolded against the backdrop of low transaction fees. Sergeenkov also reported that $740,000 was stolen in just a few days in January.
One user transferred over $12 million in Ether to a 'toxic address': he thought he was sending money to Galaxy Digital.