Kraken Restricts Accounts Over Suspected Dust Attack

A series of nearly 12,000 small cryptocurrency transfers to Kraken-linked addresses has been identified as a 'dust attack', a type of activity where numerous small transfers are made with the goal of triggering compliance reviews at other platforms.

The transfers occurred between August 17 and 24, mostly worth only a few cents or dollars, but their cumulative impact was sufficient to trigger reviews and temporarily affect some customers' access to Kraken accounts.

Kraken has described the activity as potentially designed to spread sanctioned funds and prompt compliance reviews at other platforms. HTX, the exchange linked to the wallet that made the transfers, has denied initiating the transactions and is investigating whether the wallet attribution was incorrect or if a malicious third party was responsible.