Bitcoin layer-2 network Botanix is being wound down a year after its mainnet went live.

The project cited market conditions and broader indifference within the cryptocurrency industry towards establishing greater utility on the Bitcoin network, in a post on X on Tuesday.

“It did not work,” Botanix summed up. “At least not in this market and not in this timeline.”

The aim of Botanix was to bring Ethereum-equivalent functionality to the Bitcoin network, allowing applications and smart contracts to be effectively copied and pasted onto the world’s first blockchain. The project raised $14.4 million across two funding rounds in 2023 and 2024. Despite this, its total value locked (TVL) at closure was a mere $119,500, according to data from DeFiLlama.

Botanix was one of many layer-2s and protocols to emerge in recent years, aiming to expand Bitcoin’s utility and help it evolve beyond being just a store of value.

The idea was that holders of bitcoin don’t have to just let their asset sit idle and hope for price appreciation. They can also use decentralized finance to generate income on the side. This could involve staking tokens on other blockchain networks or using smart contract-enabled DeFi tools, such as lending or decentralized exchanges (DEXs).

Botanix post-mortem

However, it didn’t go as planned, at least not for Botanix.

The protocol highlighted that “making Bitcoin programmable, productive and integrated into real financial activity isn’t where real-world users sit right now.”

This post-mortem may raise questions about the broader viability of the Bitcoin development sector, which includes other layer-2s like Rootstock or rollups like Citrea, during an extended period of muted sentiment in the crypto market.

CoinDesk reached out to these two projects for comment, but none were received as of press time.

BTC has lost more than 50% of its value since hitting its all-time high of nearly $125,000 last October, which may leave investors wondering why they should be interested in developing bitcoin’s use when it’s not currently serving its more basic function of storing value very effectively.

“It’s possible that bitcoin’s role as a reserve asset is simply where it settles. If that’s true, there will never be a market for what we are building and no amount of time or capital would change that,” Botanix said.

A simpler route to combining the secure store of wealth offered by BTC with the programmability and utility of other blockchain networks may lie in synthetic or “wrapped” bitcoin tokens. These are tokens that represent BTC on a 1:1 basis that can be traded and staked on networks like Ethereum.

The most established of these is wBTC, which was introduced in 2019, but more recently, Coinbase and Circle have developed their own synthetic bitcoin tokens to appeal to institutional investors and traders.

“For lending, yield, leveraged exposure, wBTC on a mature general-purpose L2 is genuinely sufficient,” Botanix said.

“Users have voted with their behaviour, and the verdict is that the trust assumptions of a wrapped representation on Ethereum are acceptable to almost everyone who wants Bitcoin-denominated DeFi.”

With its stock down 42% year-to-date and 85% over the past 12 months, Metaplanet, Japan’s largest bitcoin (BTC) treasury company, is looking to restore investor confidence.

On Monday, its CEO Simon Gerovich broadcasted, “when mNAV is below 1.0x we will strongly consider repurchasing common shares.”

The acronym mNAV refers to the premium that investors pay for Metaplanet’s common stock relative to its BTC holdings. It stands for multiple-to-Net Asset Value, a colloquial and imprecise phrase borrowed from the common use of the NAV term by managers of publicly-traded funds.

Metaplanet is the largest public company in Japan to follow the same model as Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) in pivoting to a digital asset treasury (DAT) focus.

The $1.8 billion company has amassed 40,177 BTC worth $2.5 billion.

Because the value of its BTC exceeds its market capitalization, its mNAV is below 1x. Gerovich, alongside many other shareholders, are obviously disappointed in that reality.

Humanity Protocol has identified a malware-infected developer machine as the source of the security breach that led to the theft and unauthorized minting of roughly 447 million H tokens across Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain.

According to Humanity Protocol’s incident report, an attacker gained root access to a developer device and obtained seven private keys that had been inadvertently backed up during the project’s June 2025 mainnet launch. 

The keys included the admin hot wallet key, three Ethereum Safe owner keys, and three BSC Safe owner keys, giving the attacker access to critical infrastructure from a single compromised machine.

The findings add new details to an attack that previously caused H to plunge sharply before staging a partial recovery. On June 10, the token traded near $0.163, up 23.7% over 24 hours, although it remained down 74.1% over the previous week following the exploit.

Humanity Protocol said the incident was not caused by a flaw in its bridge contracts, token contracts, or Safe architecture. Instead, the attacker used valid private keys to authorize transfers, Safe transactions, and contract upgrades after obtaining control of the credentials.

Attacker used stolen keys to seize bridge controls

Based on the report, the attack unfolded across three separate actions between June 8 and June 9.

During the first wave, 6.04 million H were drained from an Ethereum admin hot wallet after its private key was compromised. From there, the attacker moved against the protocol’s bridge infrastructure.

Using three stolen keys from a six-member Ethereum Safe, the attacker transferred ownership of the Bridge ProxyAdmin to an attacker-controlled wallet. After obtaining administrative control, the attacker upgraded the bridge to a malicious implementation and drained 141.18 million H in a single transaction.

Humanity Protocol said the transaction carried the signatures needed to meet the Safe’s threshold requirements, allowing the upgrade to appear as an authorized action rather than a smart contract exploit.

On BNB Smart Chain, a separate set of three compromised Safe keys gave the attacker control of the token’s ProxyAdmin. After deploying a malicious implementation, the attacker executed three mint transactions of 100 million H each, increasing the token’s supply from about 141.1 million to 441.1 million H.

Investigation points to single point of compromise

While the Ethereum bridge assets were drained, the report described the BSC token as unrecoverable because the attacker still controls the ProxyAdmin and can continue minting additional tokens. Humanity Protocol said the attacker retains ownership of both the bridge and token administration contracts affected in the incident.

Earlier disclosures from the project focused on compromised employee devices and stolen Safe keys. The latest forensic findings narrowed the cause to one malware-infected developer machine that stored multiple sensitive backups. According to the report, investigators believe all seven private keys were obtained from that single device.

Several questions remain unanswered. Humanity Protocol said it has not yet determined when the attacker first gained access, how the machine was compromised, or how long the stolen credentials were held before the attack was carried out.

In response to the incident, the project halted deposits and withdrawals through the affected bridges, launched a public recovery tracker, and offered a $1 million USDT bounty for information that leads to asset recovery. Humanity Protocol previously said any recovered funds would be used to buy back H tokens.

Bitcoin BTC$61,412.97 is wobbling near $61,000 and data due later today could push it over the edge along with the wider crypto market.

The U.S. consumer price index for May is due to hit the wires at 8:30 a.m. ET. The figure is expected to show the cost of living in the world’s largest economy rose 4.2% year-on-year, a three-year high, following April’s 3.8% reading, according to Reuters.

That would put inflation more than two full percentage points above the Fed’s 2% target. Concerns the Fed is likely to raise interest rates are already weighing on bitcoin, and more evidence is likely to send the largest cryptocurrency even lower.

That said, bitcoin’s reaction will depend less on the headline figure and more on what’s underneath it.

The key question is whether inflation broadened across multiple categories or remained concentrated in energy. If it’s the latter, markets may well dismiss the print as a transitory effect of the first-quarter spike in oil prices driven by the war with Iran.

This looks plausible given the CBOE Oil Volatility Index (OVX) has already cooled to pre-war levels and WTI crude fell over 16% to $87 a barrel last month. It continues to trade around those levels.

“A 0.3% MoM core inflation reading (consensus est.) could prompt a small initial rally in rates, if driven by transitory factors (e.g., fuel surcharges),” MUFG Research said. “But if inflation broadens out, it will impact a market already on edge triggering a minor sell-off.”

For bitcoin traders, a hotter-than-forecast figure across several sectors raises the probability of a break below $60,000. According to CME Fed fund futures, traders are already pricing in a year-end rate at least 25 basis points higher than the current 3.50%-3.75% range.

A downside surprise, on the other hand, could trigger a relief rally, especially given BTC is looking oversold on key indicators, such as the RSI.

Either way, volatility is likely to be elevated. The direction is the CPI’s to decide. Stay alert!

Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today . For a comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”

What’s trending

Today’s signal

The chart shows XRP’s weekly price action in candlestick format since late 2023.

Prices for the payments-focused cryptocurrency have dipped below their 200-week simple moving average (SMA) in a sign of a deepening bear market. This puts XRP at a disadvantage relative to bitcoin, which is still trading around its 200-week SMA.

The breakdown signals there’s potential for a deeper slide toward next support at $0.95, the high hit three years ago. This is the level where sellers overpowered buyers in July 2023, reversing the bounce at that time.

Anthropic has released the first public version of its Claude Mythos-based model under the Fable 5 banner, a move that has crypto users weighing the potential for powerful AI-driven vulnerabilities against the safeguards designed to mitigate misuse. Even with embedded guardrails, industry participants worry that such capable AI could lower the barrier to discovering and exploiting weaknesses in crypto systems.

Anthropic disclosed last month that its Mythos family had identified more than 10,000 high- or critical-severity vulnerabilities in “systemically important software,” a claim that has sharpened scrutiny over a public release. On Tuesday, the company asserted that Fable 5 is “made safe for general use” and includes safeguards that reroute sensitive topics—such as cybersecurity—to a separate model, Claude Opus 4.8. Yet Anthropic acknowledged, “Releasing a model this capable comes with risks. Without safeguards, Fable 5’s capabilities in areas like cybersecurity could be misused to cause serious damage.”

The crypto community’s reaction has been cautious at best. As AI-driven tooling increasingly targets crypto platforms—sometimes enabling rapid reconnaissance, vulnerability discovery, or operational manipulation—analysts point to empirical hacks and loss data to illustrate the stakes. In April, the total value stolen in crypto hacks reached $629.7 million, the highest monthly tally since February 2025, a development analysts linked—at least in part—to advancing AI-assisted attack methods.

Key takeaways

• Anthropic publicly released Claude Mythos’ Fable 5, the latest high-capability iteration offered for general use, with safety rails that redirect sensitive cybersecurity inquiries to Claude Opus 4.8.
• The company emphasizes safety, but warns that powerful models can still be misused to exploit crypto ecosystems if proper defenses are not maintained.
• Crypto practitioners express persistent concern: tools that lower the cost and skill barrier for bug discovery could transform both defensive audits and offensive exploits, particularly in DeFi.
• Industry voices offer a spectrum of views—from alarm about increased attack surface to skepticism that Mythos’ bug-hunting prowess will translate directly into more DeFi exploits.
• Anthropic plans restricted access for a small group of cybersecurity and infrastructure providers to Mythos 5 with safeguards lifted in certain areas, highlighting ongoing debates about governance and exposure.

Public release and guardrails: what changes for crypto researchers and hackers?

Fable 5 represents the publicly accessible layer of Claude Mythos, designed to operate alongside the company’s existing guardrails. Anthropic’s framing suggests that while the model is powerful enough to analyze complex software and generate insights, it deliberately channels cybersecurity-related queries away from the main assistant toward a protected variant. The aim is to balance broad usability with risk containment, particularly given the sensitive nature of security research and the potential for dual-use applications.

However, the topic remains contentious in crypto circles. The release has revived conversations about whether publicly available AI tools should be trusted to surface critical weaknesses or inadvertently enable attackers to automate reconnaissance, vulnerability analysis, and even exploit development. The tension is stark when viewed against recent threat data and the rising sophistication of AI-assisted security testing.

Voices from the frontlines: competing assessments of risk

Simon Dedic, founder of Moonrock Capital, captured the unease in a series of posts, arguing that Fable 5 could dramatically lower the cost and skill required to identify exploitable flaws in smart contracts. “For DeFi, this should be a massive wake-up call. Unaudited protocols will become sitting ducks. Known exploits will get replayed on forks around the clock. Even small projects will get targeted simply because trying costs next to nothing now,” he wrote online. The implication is that the barrier to finding and exploiting bugs could shrink, potentially accelerating both defensive and offensive cycles in DeFi security.

Not all voices share that alarm. Curve Finance co-founder Michael Egorov offered a more tempered view, suggesting that Mythos’ track record of finding bugs in other software might not seamlessly translate to discovering vulnerabilities in DeFi smart contracts. He noted that the scale of code in the targeted software matters: Mythos identified vulnerabilities in software with millions of lines of code, whereas smart contracts in DeFi are typically much smaller. “Both humans and ‘usual’ AI perfectly fit that code in context and can reason well about it,” he said, signaling that the direct translation of Mythos’ strengths to DeFi threats may be overstated for now.

Beyond DeFi-specific concerns, Egorov warned of broader operational-security vectors, such as compromised multisig keys or supply-chain attacks on frontend dependencies, which could become more prevalent in a world where AI-assisted analysis accelerates vulnerability discovery. He argued that while the risk landscape would inevitably shift, outright catastrophic DeFi hacks might not materialize in the same fashion as large-scale software breaches.

Context: Mythos findings in the wider ecosystem

May’s disclosures from Anthropic highlighted Mythos’ breadth of capability, revealing thousands of critical findings in important software via Project Glasswing. In the realm of open-source software—which underpins a significant portion of crypto protocol infrastructure—Mythos reportedly identified around 6,200 high- or critical-severity vulnerabilities across more than 1,000 projects. This backdrop underscores the tension between openness, speed, and security in crypto engineering, where open-source components are ubiquitous and critical to security posture.

For crypto projects, the takeaway is not simply a warning about AI-powered bug hunting but a prompt to rethink defense-in-depth, vetting processes, and the governance of open-source dependencies. If an AI model can surface vulnerabilities across diverse systems rapidly, project teams may need to raise their security bar for code audits, dependency management, and prompt patch adoption, while also considering privileged access controls and wallet-security hygiene in day-to-day operations.

Access, governance, and the path forward

Anthropic confirmed that a “small group” of cybersecurity and infrastructure providers would gain access to Claude Mythos 5—the same base as Fable 5 but with safeguards lifted in limited areas. This approach aims to balance the broader public utility of the model with controlled exposure, allowing vetted institutions to push the boundaries of security research while preserving guardrails for the general user base. The arrangement mirrors ongoing debates within the AI and crypto communities about who should have access to powerful tools and under what conditions.

The conversation remains unsettled as the industry weighs potential benefits—accelerated discovery of vulnerabilities, improved security tooling, and more robust defensive capabilities—against risks like misuse, privacy breaches, or unauthorized system manipulation. The evolving dynamic invites further scrutiny from regulators, platform operators, and developers who must balance innovation with responsible stewardship.

For crypto stakeholders, the immediate takeaway is pragmatic: while powerful AI like Mythos can accelerate security work, it also intensifies the need for disciplined operational security. Practitioners are advised to maintain best practices—revoke unused wallet approvals, reduce exposure by minimizing on-chain value during high-risk experimentation, and consider hardware wallet recovery and cold-storage measures during periods of heightened AI-assisted threat activity.

In the coming months, observers will watch how firms implement governance around AI-assisted security testing, how asset custodians adapt to emerging risk vectors, and whether regulatory bodies issue more explicit guidelines on the permissible use of advanced AI in crypto security research. The balance between enabling powerful tooling and safeguarding user funds remains the central question for builders, users, and investors navigating this evolving frontier.

As the AI-security narrative unfolds, readers should stay attuned to updates on who gains continued access to Mythos 5, how the guardrails evolve, and what concrete incident data emerges as crypto teams adapt to a world where AI-assisted vulnerability discovery becomes routine rather than exceptional.

TLDR:

• One compromised developer machine exposed seven private keys tied to Humanity Protocol’s infrastructure.
• The attacker drained 141M H from the ETH bridge and minted 300M H on BSC using stolen Safe owner keys.
• No smart contract bug was involved — every attacker action used legitimate, compromised private keys.
• The BSC H token remains unrecoverable as the attacker still controls the ProxyAdmin and can mint freely.

Humanity Protocol confirmed on June 9, 2026, that a single compromised developer machine was the source of a coordinated cross-chain attack.

An attacker obtained seven private keys from one infected device, enabling unauthorized control over critical protocol infrastructure on both Ethereum and BNB Chain.

The incident resulted in losses exceeding $31 million and a near-total collapse of the H token’s market value.

One Device, Full Protocol Access

The investigation confirmed that a developer’s machine was infected with malware, giving the attacker complete root access.

During the Humanity Protocol mainnet launch in approximately June 2025, several private keys were inadvertently backed up to that same device.

Those keys included the admin hot wallet key, three ETH Safe owner keys, and three BSC Safe owner keys — seven in total, all stored on one machine.

Founder Terence Kwok acknowledged the breach publicly, stating: “We’ve detected a security incident involving the compromise of private keys belonging to a member of the Humanity Foundation. As a precaution, please do not interact with the bridge or any liquidity pools until we confirm it’s safe.” The team added it was already working with security experts at the time of that statement.

Because all seven keys resided on one device, a single point of compromise handed the attacker full operational control. The attack was not the result of a smart contract bug.

Every transfer, Safe transaction, and proxy upgrade the attacker executed used legitimate credentials, making early on-chain detection nearly impossible.

Three Attack Vectors, One Stolen Key Set

The first attack began on June 8, 2026, when the attacker used the compromised admin hot wallet key to transfer 6,045,060 H tokens directly to an aggregation wallet on Ethereum. That transaction required no contract interaction — just a stolen key and a direct outbound transfer.

The second vector followed hours later. Using three of the six stolen ETH Safe owner keys, the attacker assembled an offline Safe transaction and transferred Bridge ProxyAdmin ownership to their own wallet.

They then upgraded the bridge contract to a malicious implementation and swept 141,182,632 H in a single transaction. The entire ETH bridge lockbox was drained within minutes of the ProxyAdmin transfer.

The third vector targeted BNB Chain. Three BSC Safe owner keys — a completely separate set from the ETH compromised keys — were also stored on the same device.

The attacker used those keys to seize the BSC ProxyAdmin by the same method, then called mint() three times, producing 100 million H per transaction.

On-chain analyst Specter flagged the early stages of the attack on X, writing: “It appears that wallets linked to, or that have interacted with, @Humanityprot are being compromised. So far, more than 17 wallets holding $H tokens have been drained, resulting in total losses exceeding $5 million.”

Total BSC mints ultimately reached 300 million H, pushing the pre-attack supply of 141 million to 441 million — a 213% increase.

What Was Saved and What Remains at Risk

Not all protocol infrastructure was affected. The ETH H token contract remained untouched throughout the attack, as its ProxyAdmin was controlled by a clean 4-of-7 Safe.

On June 9, that Safe successfully froze the ETH H token by upgrading it to an implementation that blocks all transfers. The canonical Arbitrum bridge, holding approximately 87 million H, also remained unaffected.

However, the ETH bridge and the BSC H token contract remain fully under attacker control. The BSC ProxyAdmin has not been recovered, and the attacker retains the ability to mint additional H tokens at any time. Around 21.74 million H also remained in the aggregation wallet as of June 9, pending liquidation.

The Humanity Protocol private key compromise reflects a human and operational security failure. The investigation report stated the attack “was made possible entirely by key compromise resulting from inadequate key storage practices,” noting that production-grade signing keys were backed up to a general-purpose development machine rather than isolated hardware.

The attack may have been planned well in advance, as the attacker held all seven keys before executing coordinated moves across two chains within a 15-hour window.

A coalition of crypto policy advocates has asked the U.S. Treasury to narrow a proposed AML and sanctions framework for stablecoin issuers under the GENIUS Act, warning that broad secondary-market obligations could disrupt permissionless blockchain infrastructures and the broader DeFi ecosystem. The Hyperliquid Policy Center (HPC) and venture firm Paradigm filed their joint comment this week, urging regulators to focus compliance on the primary market while taking a limited approach to secondary activity.

In their submission, the groups support FinCEN’s logic of concentrating obligations on issuers that hold customer information in the primary market, and applying a more restrained scope to secondary-market activity where issuers would only see wallets and transactions. They argued that the same principle should guide AML and sanctions requirements for stablecoins operating in permissionless environments, where visibility into end-users is inherently limited.

According to Cointelegraph, the Treasury’s April proposed rule aims to implement GENIUS Act provisions by requiring stablecoin issuers to have the capability to block, freeze or reject transactions that violate U.S. law or sanctions on both the primary and secondary markets. The HPC-Paradigm letter frames this as a potential overreach that could expand an issuer’s compliance perimeter beyond what is feasible or fair in a permissionless setting.

The authors contend that the proposed rule would sweep secondary-market activity into an issuer’s enforceable domain, a territory they say issuers cannot meaningfully police. They also warn that treating smart contract interactions as sanctionable activity—regardless of issuer relationships or visibility into the transacting parties—could create a chilling effect on open, programmable money and incentivize issuers to migrate away from open networks toward permissioned environments.

If such a shift were to occur, the groups warned, US-regulated stablecoins could retreat from decentralized finance, leaving a void filled by unregulated offshore or non-dollar alternatives. The argument reflects broader concerns among open-architecture advocates that heavy-handed compliance obligations in the secondary market would erode the openness of DeFi protocols.

Key takeaways

• The HPC-Paradigm coalition urges the Treasury to tailor GENIUS Act AML/sanctions rules to emphasize primary-market obligations for issuers, with a limited role for secondary-market enforcement.
• Proponents warn that sweeping secondary-market coverage would be difficult for issuers to police in permissionless networks and could penalize smart contract interactions without issuer visibility.
• There is concern that aggressive secondary-market rules could push stablecoins toward permissioned environments, undermining DeFi and potentially creating non-dollar or offshore alternatives.
• The GENIUS Act was signed into law last year, with implementation expected by January 2027; regulators and lawmakers are still refining related rules, including ongoing CLARITY Act discussions in the Senate.

Regulatory context and the path forward

The letter from HPC and Paradigm sits within a broader regulatory discourse on how to regulate stablecoins, open networks, and DeFi without compromising financial integrity or innovation. The GENIUS Act directs stablecoin governance and enforcement considerations, while federal agencies map granular implementations across primary and secondary markets. In parallel, a larger crypto policy debate is unfolding in Congress around the CLARITY Act, which would address platform-liability for developers and potentially set boundaries on money-laundering and sanctions enforcement for open-architecture protocols. Some lawmakers are pressing for a Senate vote on the CLARITY Act before the next elections, signaling that policy alignment remains unsettled as timelines approach the January 2027 milestone.

From a regulatory perspective, the debate underscores a tension between robust enforcement capabilities and preserving the open, permissionless nature of digital assets. Institutions and regulated entities—exchanges, banks, and other market participants—are watching how regulators translate GENIUS Act provisions into concrete, risk-based requirements. The debate also touches on wider questions about licensing, supervisory oversight, and the balance between on-chain transparency and the practical limits of identifying end-users in permissionless ecosystems.

For policymakers, the central issue is how to deter illicit finance and sanctions evasion without undermining innovation or driving activity into opaque or offshore channels. For regulated firms, the key concern is ensuring that compliance obligations are clear, proportionate, and enforceable in a way that aligns with existing AML/KYC frameworks and cross-border regulatory differences. The GenIUS Act and related proposals thus sit at the intersection of enforcement risk, open financial infrastructure, and the evolving architecture of digital assets.

Closing perspective

As the regulatory process unfolds, observers should monitor how the Treasury and federal agencies calibrate primary versus secondary-market obligations for stablecoins, and how that calibration might affect the openness of DeFi and the competitiveness of US-regulated issuers. The coming months are likely to reveal amendments aimed at balancing enforcement with the preservation of open, interoperable blockchain ecosystems.