Ethereum sets a record with 2.9 million transactions processed in a single day, possibly driven mainly by "address poisoning" attacks

According to ChainCatcher, citing CoinDesk, on-chain activity on the Ethereum network has surged recently, reaching a new single-day high of 2.9 million transactions. However, the price of ETH has remained flat, which may be due to large-scale "address poisoning" attacks rather than genuine user demand growth.

Research has found that about 80% of the abnormal increase in new addresses is related to stablecoins, and approximately 67% of newly active addresses made their first transfer of less than $1, which is characteristic of a "dust attack." In the analyzed sample, around 3.86 million addresses received "poison dust" in their first stablecoin transaction. Attackers use smart contracts to send tiny amounts of stablecoins to hundreds of thousands of addresses, polluting users' transaction histories and luring them into mistakenly transferring large sums to spoofed similar addresses. After the Fusaka upgrade in early December last year, transaction fees dropped significantly, making such low-cost attacks feasible. This suggests that Ethereum's record transaction volume may be exaggerated by spam transactions, undermining its credibility as a signal of increased network demand, and the market has not regarded it as a positive catalyst for ETH price.