Kraken says it’s restored customer accounts after what it describes as a dust attack linked to HTX.
Over the span of a week, nearly 12,000 tiny crypto transfers, most just a few cents or a few dollars, were sent to addresses tied to Kraken. This pattern isn’t about stealing funds. With a dust attack, the intent is to spread tainted assets across many accounts or to trigger anti-money-laundering systems to lock users out, even if they never asked to receive those funds.
Kraken says it doesn’t know who’s behind the attack, but the tactic appeared designed to disrupt the exchange’s sanctions systems. As soon as funds linked to a sanctioned party touch exchange infrastructure, even by unsolicited deposit, the system can enforce reviews or temporary locks. That’s what happened here.
Kraken briefly restricted some customer accounts to separate legitimate account access from the suspect assets. The exchange says those restrictions have now been lifted for unaffected users, though the sanctioned funds themselves remain frozen pending further investigation.
The clear takeaway is that unsolicited transfers worth just pennies were enough to trigger Kraken account reviews and briefly lock real users out.