Investor Loses $3.05 Million in USDT to a Phishing Attack

A notable blockchain analytics platform noted that an investor just lost a significant amount of $USDT in a malicious phishing attack.

In a post on X, Lookonchain reveals that the crypto investor lost over $3 million in $USDT after unknowingly approving a malicious transaction yesterday, August 5.

According to the analytics platform, the attacker used a phishing exploit to access and transfer the funds from the victim’s Ethereum wallet. Blockchain data confirmed the incident.

Meanwhile, the attacker received 3,087,821 aETHUSDT tokens, valued at roughly $3.05 million, from the victim’s wallet.

Afterward, the hacker moved the funds to two addresses. First, it moved 463,173 $USDT to an address identified as “Fake_Phishing” and then moved the remaining 2.6 million $USDT to an unidentified address.

The Fake_Phishing address appears to have sent 463K $USDT to a dead address, while the unidentified address moved $2.6 million to several other addresses, swapped them for 730 $ETH, and then staked these $ETH tokens.

Lookonchain Encourages Vigilance

Following the loss, Lookonchain emphasized the importance of understanding transaction prompts before signing them, warning that a single careless click could result in the complete loss of wallet funds.

Notably, this case is not an isolated incident. Last year, a DeFi whale lost $55.47 million in $DAI after signing a phishing transaction that transferred asset ownership to a scammer. The funds, stored in Maker, became inaccessible once control shifted. The attacker quickly moved the $DAI to a new wallet and began converting it to Ethereum.

Before that, a MakerDAO delegate lost $11 million in tokens, including USDe, to a phishing attack. Scam Sniffer reported that the attacker used multiple phishing signatures to trick the delegate’s wallet into approving malicious transactions.

Over $2 Billion Lost to Hackers in the first Half of 2025

Notably, incidents of stolen funds continue to rise. In the first half of 2025, crypto theft reached a record high as bad actors stole $2.1 billion across 75 attacks. The figure marks a 10% rise from H1 2022 and nearly matches the $2.2 billion stolen in all of 2024.

The largest single incident was the Bybit hack, which accounted for $1.5 billion and was linked to North Korean threat actors. Another major breach involved Israeli-affiliated Predatory Sparrow, which targeted Iran’s Nobitex exchange during the Israel-Iran conflict, seizing $90 million and sending it to unusable addresses.