What is Dusting Attack?

A dusting attack sprinkles tiny, near-worthless amounts of crypto, called dust, into many wallets. The attacker’s goal is not the trivial value but the information. By watching how the dust later moves and combines with other funds, they try to link addresses together and de-anonymise owners, or they use it to seed address-poisoning traps.

This matters because it can erode your privacy and set you up for targeted scams. Unexpected tiny deposits are sometimes the first step in a larger attack.

Example: you notice a minuscule amount of an unknown token appear in your wallet; it was sent to thousands of addresses at once, and the attacker now watches to see which wallets interact with it.

Safety note: do not interact with, swap, or approve unexpected dust or unknown tokens that appear in your wallet, since doing so can confirm your activity or trigger a malicious approval. Simply ignore and leave them. For privacy-sensitive holdings, avoid mixing dusted funds with your main balances. Related terms include address poisoning, on-chain, token approval, and wallet address.