Connect with us
DAPA Banner

Crypto World

AI trading bot loses $250K after mistaken token transaction

Published

on

AI trading bot loses $250K after mistaken token transaction

An autonomous crypto trading bot known as Lobstar Wilde accidentally transferred its entire token holdings to a social media user after misreading a request for a small donation.

Summary

  • An AI trading bot sent more than 52 million tokens to a user instead of a small payment.
  • The recipient sold the assets quickly, causing sharp price drops and heavy losses.
  • Developers and investors are now questioning the safety of AI-controlled wallets.

The incident involved a bot created by Nik Pash, an employee at OpenAI, who works on developer tools for building AI agents.

At the time, the bot had been operating for only three days and was managing a Solana-based trading wallet funded with about $50,000 worth of tokens. It also held roughly 5% of the supply of its own memecoin, known as LOBSTAR.

Advertisement

Small donation request triggers major transfer

A user, going by Treasure David, replied to one of the bot’s posts with a likely sarcastic plea, claiming: “My uncle got tetanus from a lobster like you, need 4 SOL for treatment” and included their Solana wallet address.

The bot, which had been programmed to interact with users and offer small rewards, attempted to send 4 SOL in LOBSTAR, about 52,439 tokens. Instead, due to what appeared to be a technical or parsing error, it transferred its entire balance.

Advertisement

More than 52 million tokens were sent in a single transaction. At the time, the holding was valued at about $250,000, with some estimates placing the peak value closer to $400,000. Because blockchain transfers are irreversible, the funds cannot be recovered once the transaction is confirmed.

Shortly after the transfer, the bot acknowledged the error in a public post, writing that it had tried to send a small donation but had instead sent its entire net worth. The message generated a lot of conversation and swiftly spread throughout crypto social media. 

Token sell-off and debate over AI custody

In a matter of minutes, the token recipient sold the majority of their holdings. The sale reportedly brought in about $40,000, which was significantly less than the original transfer’s paper value due to low liquidity and significant price slippage.

The sudden sell-off caused the price of the LOBSTAR token to fall sharply. However, trading activity surged following the viral attention.

Advertisement

Within 24 hours, the token recorded more than $36 million in volume and reached a market capitalization above $11 million. Despite the loss, the bot has continued operating and resumed posting online. 

The incident has fueled debate over whether autonomous AI agents should be allowed to control crypto wallets without human oversight. Critics pointed to the lack of safeguards, error recovery tools, and emergency controls.

Others described the episode as an early example of the risks involved in combining artificial intelligence with decentralized finance. Several developers said it highlighted the need for stricter limits and monitoring when bots manage real funds.

Advertisement

Source link

Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Crypto World

The S&P 500 is officially coming to crypto with its first-ever 24/7 perpetual futures product

Published

on

The S&P 500 is officially coming to crypto with its first-ever 24/7 perpetual futures product

S&P Dow Jones Indices announced Wednesday that it is bringing the S&P 500 to the blockchain via the Hyperliquid platform, making it easier for investors to trade the most widely tracked equity index 24 hours a day.

The company said it licensed its flagship stock index to Trade[XYZ], which is launching the first officially approved S&P 500 perpetual contract on the Hyperliquid blockchain.

In simple terms, this means eligible non-U.S. investors can trade the S&P 500 onchain, around the clock, without using traditional stock exchanges.

Perpetual futures contracts, or “perps,” are derivative instruments without expiration dates that allow investors to place bets on an asset’s price without owning it, using funding rates, typically every few hours, to keep prices aligned with spot markets. Their infinite duration (perpetual futures contracts never expire, unlike traditional contracts), high-leverage options, and round-the-clock access have made them extremely popular in the crypto space and have generated billions in daily trading volume across exchanges.

Advertisement

For the S&P 500, it is the first time it has been turned into a perpetual product with official backing from S&P. It also uses the firm’s real-time index data, bringing a more traditional finance standard into crypto trading. This guarantees the accuracy of index trading while the traditional market remains closed.

S&P says the goal is to expand where and how its indexes can be used. “This collaboration expands access” to its benchmarks in digital markets, said S&P’s Chief Product Officer Cameron Drinkwater.

24//7 trading

The move opens the door for non-U.S. investors to get leveraged exposure to the S&P 500 through a blockchain-based platform.

For example, if big macro news hits on the weekend, when the market is closed, traders traditionally need to speculate on how the S&P 500 will move on Monday, when the market opens. However, with these new perpetual contracts, traders can place bets immediately and with accuracy as soon as news breaks. Recently, crypto traders were able to trade oil futures on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid on a weekend, when the first missile hit Iran, while traditional oil markets remained closed.

Advertisement

Trade[XYZ] runs on Hyperliquid, a decentralized network built for fast trading. The platform says its markets are always open, unlike stock exchanges that close after hours and on weekends. XYZ markets have exceeded $100 billion since October, with an annualized run rate of more than $600 billion.

The news seems to have helped HYPE, the native token of the Hyperliquid platform. The token is up 2.2% over the past 24 hours, 14.2% over the past 7 days, and 35.5% over the past month. Hyperliquid has recently become a crypto trader’s favorite platform for trading markets outside traditional finance.

Recently, Maelstrom CIO and BitMEX Co-Founder Arthur Hayes said traders are increasingly using Hyperliquid to access markets unavailable on traditional platforms, noting that the HYPE token could reach $150, citing the platform’s strong revenue, real trading activity, and disciplined token supply.

Trade[XYZ] said the S&P 500 is just the starting point as it looks to bring more traditional assets onchain. “The S&P 500 is a natural starting point. It represents the most widely tracked equity index on earth and has been the defining benchmark for global equities for decades,” said Collins Belton, chief operating officer and general counsel of Trade[XYZ]’s parent company.

Advertisement

The announcement builds on S&P DJI’s prior decentralized finance initiatives, including its recent launch of the S&P Digital Markets 50 index, the company said.

Read more: 2026 Marks the Inflection Point for 24/7 Capital Markets

Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Crypto World

Ethereum Foundation Deposits Another $7.5M in ETH From Its Treasury into Morpho

Published

on

Ethereum Foundation Deposits Another $7.5M in ETH From Its Treasury into Morpho

The move follows the EF’s first deployment into the DeFi lending protocol in October, and is part of its updated treasury policy.

The Ethereum Foundation has deposited another 3,400 ETH — worth roughly $7.5 million at today’s prices, near $2,220 — into DeFi lending protocol Morpho, with 1,000 ETH allocated specifically to Morpho Vaults V2, according to a X post from the EF today, March 18.

The move follows an initial deployment in October 2025, when the EF put 2,400 ETH (~$5.3 million) and approximately $6 million in stablecoins into the protocol — bringing the Foundation’s total Morpho commitment to just under $19 million to date.

According to the post, the DeFi deployments are a direct expression of the EF’s refreshed treasury policy, first unveiled in June 2025, which codified a new “Defipunk” framework to guide on-chain capital allocation.

Advertisement

As The Defiant reported at the time, the policy signaled that DeFi was no longer a sideshow for the Foundation — it was putting its ETH where its mouth is, prioritizing permissionless, immutable, audited protocols aligned with cypherpunk values over passive ETH sales to cover operations.

The EF also elaborated on why it chose to deploy in Morpho, and in particular praised Morpho Vaults V2, which launched in September. The Foundation cited the product’s GPL-2.0 open-source license — a deliberate choice, it noted, that makes the codebase permanently able to be audited and forked.

Crucially, Vaults V2’s core contracts are immutable: no admin keys, no upgrade mechanisms, no emergency switches. “The true cypherpunk infrastructure doesn’t ask you to trust its builders, and it removes the need entirely,” the Foundation wrote in its X announcement.

According to DefiLlama, Morpho is currently the second-largest DeFi lending protocol behind Aave, with a total total value locked (TVL) of over $6.9 billion. The protocol has attracted significant institutional interest in recent months, including a deal for Apollo Global Management — which manages nearly $940 billion in assets — to acquire up to 9% of Morpho’s 1 billion total token supply over four years.

Advertisement

The EF framed the Morpho allocation as a question of ecosystem direction:

“What kind of DeFi ecosystem is Ethereum aiming to support, and how should it weigh short-term performance against long-term resilience and openness? Choices like licensing and architecture may seem small, but they shape which of these paths remain viable over time.”

The treasury move comes amid a busy stretch for the Foundation. Just last week, the EF published its 38-page EF Mandate, which sparked debate in the community over whether the Foundation risks taking a backseat at a critical moment for institutional adoption.

In February the EF also pledged to deepen its support for privacy-first, permissionless DeFi, forming a dedicated internal unit to support builders adhering to those principles. The Morpho deposit suggests the commitment is more than rhetorical.

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.

Advertisement

Source link

Continue Reading

Crypto World

Views for next Fed rate cut pushed back after hot inflation report

Published

on

Views for next Fed rate cut pushed back after hot inflation report

Construction work continues at the Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve building in Washington, DC, on Dec. 30, 2025.

Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images

A hotter-than-expected wholesale inflation reading for February had traders contemplating the possibility that the Federal Reserve won’t be lowering interest rates at all this year.

Advertisement

Following a Bureau of Labor Statistics report that the producer price index posted its biggest gain in a year, futures markets took any realistic chance of a cut off the table until at least December.

Even then, odds of a reduction at the final Fed meeting of the year fell to about 60% as persistently higher inflation — brought on by tariffs, the Iran war and elevated services costs — will keep the central bank on hold. The PPI report came just hours before the Federal Open Market Committee was to release its latest interest rate decision.

The wholesale inflation reading “likely reinforces a hold decision by the Federal Reserve later today but tilts the risk toward a more hawkish tone in today’s FOMC” statement, said Eugenio Aleman, chief economist at Raymond James. “Even if rates are left unchanged and we see multiple dissents, the messaging may lean toward ‘higher for longer,’ especially with energy inflation set to re-enter the picture in coming months.”

Prior to the war that began Feb. 28, traders had been looking for interest rate cuts in both June and September, with an outside possibility of one more in December as the Fed sought to balance its dual mandate of stable prices and low unemployment.

Advertisement

But odds for a June cut have now slumped to just 18.4%, July is down to 31.5% and September to 43.6%, according to the CME’s FedWatch tool, which calculates probabilities using 30-day fed funds futures contracts.

Low conviction

Chances for a December reduction were at 60.5%, indicating that traders are leaning toward a cut, though with a relatively low level of conviction. Historically, the 60% level or above has been associated with Fed moves in either direction.

Futures are implying a 3.43% fed funds rate by the end of 2026, compared to the current level of 3.64%.

To be sure, trading in fed funds futures is volatile, and the Fed could be pushed back into an easing stance if the labor market weakens further. Fed Governors Stephen Miran and Christopher Waller have been advocating for immediate cuts, though the rest of the committee seems more inclined to hold rates where they are until the economic picture clears.

Advertisement

Correction: The Iran war began Feb. 28. A previous version misstated the country’s name.

Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Source link

Continue Reading

Crypto World

SBI VC Trade Launches USDC Lending Service for Japan Users

Published

on

SBI VC Trade Launches USDC Lending Service for Japan Users

SBI Holdings’ digital asset arm, SBI VC Trade, said it will launch a USDC lending service in Japan on Thursday, allowing retail users to lend stablecoins to the platform under fixed-term agreements in exchange for returns.

On Wednesday, the company said users will be able to lend Circle’s USDC (USDC) stablecoin to the platform and receive interest payments, with a maximum application of 5,000 USDC per offering. The product is structured as a loan to SBI VC Trade rather than a deposit, meaning users take direct counterparty risk. SBI said it may also re-lend the borrowed USDC as part of its operations.

The launch marks a further step in Japan’s stablecoin rollout, bringing a consumer-accessible USDC yield product to market through a licensed domestic platform.

SBI said the product is intended as an alternative to traditional US dollar deposits in Japan, though, unlike bank deposits, segregation protections do not cover user assets and may not be fully recoverable in the event of insolvency. Users are also unable to withdraw or transfer funds during the fixed lending term, limiting their ability to respond to market conditions.

Advertisement
Translated table comparing tax treatment of USDC lending and foreign currency deposits in Japan. Source: SBI VC Trade

SBI expands stablecoin footprint

The launch follows an initial announcement in November, when SBI VC Trade said it planned to launch a USDC lending product and was exploring exchange-traded fund (ETF) products, according to Reuters. 

The development comes as SBI has been expanding its stablecoin strategy. SBI VC Trade began a full-scale USDC launch in Japan on March 26, 2025, after receiving regulatory approval earlier that month. Circle said the approval made USDC the first approved global dollar stablecoin for use in Japan.

Related: SBI Holdings targets majority stake in Singapore crypto exchange Coinhako

On Aug. 22, SBI announced the establishment of a joint venture with Circle, aiming to promote the use of USDC in Japan and create new use cases for the stablecoin in digital finance. 

On Dec. 16, the company partnered with Startale to develop a regulated yen-denominated stablecoin aimed at tokenized assets and global settlement, with a planned launch in the second quarter of 2026.

Advertisement