Ethereum study flags 65,340 risky addresses tied to $574.8M

A USENIX Security ’26 study has identified 65,340 high-risk address instances across Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain, linking them to 126,982.94 ETH and 17,726.7 BNB in native-token losses. Summary Researchers identified 65,340 high-risk address instances across Ethereum and BNB Chain in their large-scale study. Estimated losses reached 126,982.94 ETH and 17,726.7 BNB, valued by researchers above $574.8 million overall. Researchers extracted 16.3 million private keys from 63,004 GitHub repositories for their cross-chain analysis dataset. Their detection framework achieved 99.11% precision after manual sampling validation across both analyzed blockchain networks. Two newly described attack vectors exploited deterministic contract addresses and EIP-7702 delegated account control mechanisms. The paper, presented at the 35th USENIX Security Symposium in Baltimore, estimates their dollar value at more than $574.8 million. The dollar figure needs context. The researchers say they valued the token losses using reference prices of $4,408 per ETH and $847 per BNB rather than prices at the time of every transaction. They describe their findings as a “conservative lower bound” because the analys...