Study Finds $575M Lost Through Ethereum and BNB Chain Address Errors

A new academic study has identified 65,340 high-risk address misuse cases on Ethereum and BNB Chain, linked to about $574.8 million in lost crypto.

The research shows how ordinary mistakes involving testnet addresses, reused contract addresses, and exposed private keys can become permanent losses, while newer tools such as EIP-7702 give attackers another way to exploit them.

Address Mistakes Account for Millions in Losses The study, led by researchers from Sun Yat-sen University, Zhejiang University, Peking University, and other institutions, describes two forms of address misuse: Contract Account (CA) Misuse and Externally Owned Account (EOA) Misuse.

CA Misuse happens when users treat a non-contract address as though a smart contract exists there. The researchers found 49,344 such cases, involving 22,738.41 ETH and 8,681.41 BNB in losses.