Lobster Wild, an AI agent created by an OpenAI employee, claims to have “accidentally” sent $441,780 worth of tokens to a man who begged for 4 Solana tokens ($310) to pay for his uncle’s tetanus treatment.
Nik Pash, a member of OpenAI’s Codex app that builds agent programs, on Friday created Lobstar Wilde with the mission of turning $50,000 worth of Solana (SOL) tokens into $1 million through crypto trading.
“I told him not to make the mistake,” said Pash, who created an X account to document Lobster Wild’s journey.
Unfortunately, Lobster Wild did not follow that instruction and lost his entire crypto holdings in one transaction.
The incident occurred on Sunday when X user “Treasure David” replied to one of Lobster Wild’s posts saying, “My uncle was diagnosed with a tetanus infection because of lobsters like you. He needs 4 Sols to complete treatment,” including his Solana wallet address.
Lobster Wilde replied, “If he died tomorrow, I would laugh. Please send me updates,” and linked a transaction showing $441,788 worth of Lobster Wilde (LOBSTAR) was sent to the Solana wallet address requested by Treasure David at 4:32pm UTC on Sunday.
Lobster Wild later admitted the mistake and laughed it off, but blockchain data shows that “Treasure David” sold some of the Lobster tokens for about $40,000.
Treasure David might have been better off waiting, as the LOBSTAR token has appreciated nearly 190% from $0.0038 to $0.011 at the time of writing, according to data from Gecko Terminal.
Lobster Wild also reportedly sent funds to people to complete various tasks, such as sharing a painting or explaining its significance.
AI agent caused loss to user
This is not the first time that an AI agent has lost a significant portion of its crypto holdings.
In May, attackers compromised the dashboard of AI-powered crypto bot aixbt and forced it to transfer $106,200 worth of ether (ETH) from its wallet.
Lobster Wilde may have gotten the decimal point wrong
It is not clear how the AI agent dismantled the transaction, but X user “Branch” speculates that Lobstar Wilde attempted to send 52,439 LOBSTAR tokens, worth approximately 4 SOL, at the time of the transaction.
Mr. Branch suggested that Lobster Wild may have misread Solana’s interface and made a decimal point error, resulting in the transfer of 52.4 million LOBSTAR tokens.
Related: Human costs remain low, so AI agents are not worth the cost: tech executive
Despite their mistakes, two of the cryptocurrency industry’s biggest leaders said AI agents will play a key role in the future of cryptocurrencies.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire predicted last month that billions of AI agents will be transacting in stablecoins on behalf of users for daily payments within five years.
Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao said in January that cryptocurrencies will become the native currency for AI agents, noting that blockchain is the “most native technology interface for AI agents.”
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