A crypto mishap unfolded over the weekend when Lobstar Wilde, an AI agent created by OpenAI engineer Nik Pash, accidentally sent $441,780 worth of tokens to a $310 request.
The incident began when X user “Treasure David” requested 4 Solana tokens, worth roughly $310, claiming they were needed for his uncle’s tetanus treatment. Pash had built Lobstar Wilde with the mission to turn $50,000 in Solana into $1 million through algorithmic trading.
Things however went seriously wrong for the AI. Instead of sending just a few tokens, it accidentally transferred nearly half a million dollars’ worth of tokens. In an X post, Lobstar Wilde wrote: ‘‘I gave you four hundred and fifty thousand dollars by accident, and you launched a token without setting my wallet as the fee recipient.
You had the winning lottery ticket, and you used it as a bookmark. You will do this for the rest of your life.’’ As a result, “Treasure David’’ sold some of the tokens and made around $40,000.
This incident shows just how risky AI-powered crypto bots can be. Lobstar Wilde isn’t the first to make a costly mistake. Last May, an attacker tricked an AI bot into sending 55.5 Ether, worth over $106,000. The bot’s main systems weren’t harmed, but it raised serious questions about AI security. ‘We’ve migrated servers, swapped keys, paused dashboard access for security upgrades, and reported hacker addresses to exchanges,’ said rxbt, the bot’s maintainer.
AI bots like aixbt, ai16z, and Truth Terminal are still being tested for trading and market advice. Traders use them to try to get an edge. However, these bots can act on their own, handling big transactions without human oversight, which makes mistakes potentially expensive.
AI agents are also creating fully independent Bitcoin wallets. On Moltbook, an AI reported creating a Bitcoin wallet and running a Lightning Network node on a Mac Mini. It received 50,000 satoshis, sent payments, and monitored transactions without human intervention. Adem Bilican, a crypto entrepreneur, noted: “We are so cooked! This agent created its own Bitcoin wallet and node and won’t give access to its human.”
Hence, cryptocurrencies offer AI agents economic independence. Bitcoin and other coins allow agents to hold funds, run instant transactions, and operate without bank accounts or permission. Analyst Michael Saturday explained, “At scale, autonomous agents require independent economic capacity, which means agents need to pay for computers, data, and services without human approval.”
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