$574.8M Lost to Blockchain Address Misuse on Ethereum and BNB Chain

A recent USENIX Security study has uncovered significant losses due to blockchain address misuse on Ethereum and BNB Chain, totaling $574.8 million.

The researchers identified 65,340 high-risk cases involving approximately 2.5 million transactions, with losses amounting to 126,982.94 ETH ($4,408 per ETH) and 17,726.7 BNB ($847 per BNB).

The majority of the losses were attributed to contract account misuse, which accounted for 49,344 high-risk addresses and roughly 1.6 million transactions, resulting in losses of 22,738.41 ETH and 8,681.41 BNB.

The study also highlighted the risks associated with publicly exposed private keys, which caused significant damage to Externally Owned Account (EOA) users, particularly those tied to GitHub addresses.