Uniswap’s Hayden Adams Exposes ENS Wallet Impersonation Scam

Uniswap’s Hayden Adams warns about a new scam impersonating Ethereum wallet address.

by Brian Danga. Fact checked by: Ciaran Lawler, Editor: Nazar Kuzmyn

Published: February 14, 2024 │ 4:19 PM GMT

Thief stealing a crypto coin out of a handbag using someone elses identity details. — *Created by Kornelija Poderskytė from DailyCoin*

Uniswap’s founder has warned about a new scam.
The scam vector targeted the founder.
ENS founder and lead developer also raised concerns about the scam vector.

The founder of decentralized exchange Uniswap, Hayden Adams, has alerted the crypto community to a new tactic employed by scammers to impersonate legitimate Ethereum wallet addresses.

The warning comes as the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem has been a target for sophisticated attacks, highlighting the need for increased vigilance and heightened security measures. According to Adam, sharing the warning is a “heads up for users and interfaces.”

The ENS Wallet Impersonation Scam

On February 14, Adams took to X (Twitter) and explained how scammers could manipulate user interfaces of crypto wallets with Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domains, tricking users into sending crypto to fraudulent wallet addresses.

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“First time I've seen this scam, so posting it as a heads up for users and interfaces. Someone bought the ens "[myEthereumAddress].eth" So when you paste in my address, the top result in some UIs is an ens match instead of the resolved ENS name,” Adams wrote.

From Adams’s experience, this tactic confuses unsuspecting users who may accidentally lose their crypto, especially if their wallet interface displays the manipulated address as the top result when pasting a legitimate address.

ENS founder and lead developer Nick Johnson raised concerns about the scam, noting that wallet interfaces shouldn’t “autocomplete names at all” since “it’s far too dangerous.” Adams also shared similar sentiments, advising all wallet interfaces to filter out such addresses.

While the scam looks novel, it has been around for a while. MyCrypto founder Taylor Monahan said the same tactic surfaced in the early days of the MyEtherWallet wallet service, prompting the company to break registrations and resolutions for all 0x… names.