Kronos Research hacker shifts funds to Tornado Cash

May 7, 2024 Coin Telegraph

Phishing Scams Appear As Ads on Ethereum Block Explorer Etherscan: Report

April 9, 2024 The Daily Hodl

Large-scale phishing campaign detected on Etherscan ads

April 8, 2024 The Crypto Briefing

Google integrates Ethereum Name Service data for search

March 22, 2024 The Crypto Briefing

Blackrock Aims to Launch Tokenized Investment Fund, Seeks SEC Nod for ‘BUIDL’ Fund on Ethereum

March 20, 2024 Bitcoin.com

Ethereum Blockchain Data Platform Etherscan Acquires Solana Ecosystem’s Block Explorer Solscan

January 4, 2024 The Daily Hodl

AVAX blockchain explorer to shut down as Etherscan fees draw controversy

October 30, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Avalanche

Annual subscription fees for Etherscan's EaaS service has reportedly grown to $2 million per year.

Snowtrace.io, a popular blockchain explorer tool for Avalanche (AVAX), will shut down its website, powered by Etherscan's Explorer-as-a-Service (EaaS) toolkit, on November 30. The Snowtrace team clarified that only its explorer powered by Etherscan will be shut down.

According to the October 30 announcement, Snowtrace users are required to save their backup information, such as private name tags and contact verification details, before the said date. While the team did not explicitly state the reason for shutting down the explorer, some have pointed to Etherscan's service fees for its EaaS toolkit. Mikko Ohtama, co-founder of tradingprotocol, claims that an annual subscription to EaaS can cost between $1-$2 million per year. Ohtama wrote:

"EtherScan is a very good product, but smart contract verification is something that needs to be decentralised. Regulators and other are not going to be kosher with, how do you check this? The source code is hosted by a private company in Malaysia"

Phillip Liu Jr., head of strategy and operations at Ava Labs, also commented that the protocol is "moving onto something better" and is "absolutely not" cease operations. For a fee, Etherscan's EaaS service provides blockchains with a block explorer and application programming interface (API) solution. A block explorer may be discontinued due to non-renewal of an EaaS service agreement, insufficient bandwith, or limited traffic. In such instances, users are recommended to save their data, such as private name tags, transaction notes, contract verification details, etc., prior to shutting down.

The instance of Snowtrace by @etherscan will be discontinued on 30th November (00:00 UTC)

Thank you @avax and the community for the last 2 years of support and we wish you the best moving forward pic.twitter.com/WdBOzIWOz9
— Snowtrace.io (@SnowTraceHQ) October 30, 2023

Magazine: Ethereum restaking: Blockchain innovation or dangerous house of cards?

Scammers create spoof Blockworks site to drain crypto wallets

October 27, 2023 Coin Telegraph

blockworks

Phishing scammers have been spreading fake news of a $37 million dollar Uniswap exploit using a convincing fake Blockworks website.

Phishing scammers have cloned the websites of crypto media outlet Blockworks and Ethereum blockchain scanner Etherscan to trick unsuspecting readers into interacting with a phishing site.

A cloned Blockworks site displays a fake "BREAKING" news report of a supposed multimillion-dollar “approvals exploit” on the decentralized exchange Uniswap and encourages users to a faked Etherscan website to rescind approvals.

*The fake Blockworks website (left) shows a fake breaking news story of a Uniswap exploit compared to the legitimate website (right).*

The fake Etherscan website, displaying a purported token and smart contract approval checker, instead contains a smart contract that would likely drain a crypto wallet when connected.

*The phishing website (left) compared to the legitimate Etherscan website (right).*

An age check of the domains shows the fake Etherscan site — approvalscan.io — was registered on Oct. 25, with the faked Blockworks site — blockworks.media registered a day later.

Magazine: Ethereum restaking — Blockchain innovation or dangerous house of cards?

Vitalik Buterin Sends 600 Ethereum (ETH) Worth Over $1,000,000 to Coinbase As Crypto Markets Continue To Bleed

August 21, 2023 The Daily Hodl

Etherscan hides zero-value token transfers to deter address poisoning attacks

April 10, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Address poisoning is a phishing scam that can affect users who have received unwanted tokens and don't check their addresses carefully when sending crypto.

According to an Apr. 10 post from Etherscan, the blockchain explorer has disabled the display of zero-value token transfers on its website by default. From now on, users must manually switch on the display from the website's setting page. Etherscan says it made the update to deter "address poisoning" attacks that have phished and spammed unsuspecting users.

"Preventing scams and attacks in a neutral and scalable way is an infinite cat-and-mouse game… please feel free to share your feedback as we continue to improve."

Address poisoning is a type of crypto scam where an attacker sends a token with near-zero or no value to a user's address to "poison" it. Afterward, the transaction will be recorded in the soft or hard wallet's history and can be selected when making transfers. The purpose of the scam is to trick the user into sending coins to the scam address by mistake. To do this, hackers use sophisticated software to create scam addresses that look very similar to "poisoned" addresses, with the same few beginning or ending characters.

That said, the scam is only classified as phishing. Neither the unwanted coins nor the addresses receiving such tokens can compromise users' funds. However, unwanted nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, can potentially compromise an address through interactions, such as moving it to different accounts.

*Sample of zero value tokens that will be hidden by Etherscan*

Blockchain hardware wallet firm Ledger suggests users hide their unsolicited NFT collections upon receipt. While address poisoning cannot be stopped, Ledger recommends users refrain from retrieving deposit or destination addresses from their transaction history and always double-check that each character of the destination address matches the input address when sending crypto.

Magazine: Here’s how to keep your crypto safe

Etherscan

Share this video