Dusting Attacks Surge After Ethereum Fusaka Upgrade; Stablecoin Transfers Now Impact ~26% of Addresses
Dusting attacks using stablecoins have sharply increased following Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade. On-chain analysis shows stablecoin-based dusting now represents roughly 11% of daily transactions and affects about 26% of active addresses — up from pre-Fusaka rates of ~3–5% of transactions and 15–20% of addresses. Coin Metrics’ deeper dataset (Nov 2025–Jan 2026) identified that 43% of stablecoin balance updates were transfers under $1 and 38% under $0.01, characterizing many as dusting/address-seeding. The Fusaka upgrade reduced L2→L1 data-transfer costs and median ETH transaction sizes, lowering gas expenses and making mass, low-value stablecoin transfers economically viable; one attacker reportedly executed 3 million dust transfers spending only $5.18 in stablecoin, while January address-poisoning losses were flagged at about $740k. While a portion of the increase reflects legitimate micro-transactions, the rise in dusting inflates raw on-chain metrics (transaction counts, active addresses) and complicates analytics, compliance screening, and wallet privacy. Recommended industry responses include wallet-level dust detection, improved filtering by analytics firms, strengthened institutional on-chain hygiene to avoid false positives, user guidance to avoid interacting with unexpected small deposits, and broader deployment of dust-mitigation features. For traders: treat spikes in transaction counts and active-address growth as noisy signals post-Fusaka, adjust analytics to exclude likely dusting activity, and monitor privacy- and security-related developments that could affect user behavior or dApp usage. Keywords: Ethereum, Fusaka upgrade, dusting attacks, stablecoins, wallet privacy, gas fees.
Neutral
The news describes a technical and behavioral shift that increases on-chain noise rather than a direct bullish or bearish catalyst for ETH price. Reduced post-Fusaka gas costs made dusting cheap, inflating transaction and active-address metrics and creating privacy/compliance risks. Short-term market effects are likely limited: the activity can mislead sentiment-driven metrics (potentially producing transient optimism if raw metrics are misread), but analysts and exchanges can filter dusting to avoid false signals. The discovery of sizable address-poisoning losses raises security concerns that could momentarily weigh on confidence among retail users, but does not change Ethereum’s fundamentals (consensus, EVM utility, monetary policy). Over the medium term, improved tooling (wallet filters, analytics adjustments) and potential protocol- or UX-level mitigations should reduce metric distortion. Therefore the net expected price impact on ETH is neutral — traders should treat the event as an analytics/operational risk factor, not a directional price signal, while monitoring for any secondary effects (reduced dApp engagement, regulatory responses) that could become material.