AI agent sends $442K in token error

An AI agent created by an OpenAI employee reportedly “accidentally” sent roughly $441,780 worth of tokens to a user who had requested 4 Solana tokens, valued at about $310 at the time.

The agent, named Lobstar Wilde and built by Nik Pash as part of OpenAI’s Codex app ecosystem, was tasked with turning $50,000 in Solana into $1 million through autonomous crypto trading.

The erroneous transfer occurred after an X user posted a wallet address and asked for 4 SOL for medical treatment, prompting Lobstar Wilde to send approximately 52.4 million LOBSTAR tokens in a single transaction at 4:32 pm UTC on Sunday.

One theory circulating on X suggests the agent intended to send 52,439 LOBSTAR tokens but misinterpreted Solana’s user interface and transferred 52.4 million tokens instead, potentially due to a decimal error.

Blockchain data shows the recipient sold a portion of the tokens for around $40,000, while the LOBSTAR token later rose nearly 190% from $0.0038 to $0.011, according to GeckoTerminal data.

The episode follows previous AI-driven crypto losses, including a May incident in which an attacker compromised the dashboard of an AI trading bot and transferred $106,200 worth of ether.

Despite such mishaps, industry leaders including Circle chief executive Jeremy Allaire and Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao have argued that crypto will become a core payment layer for AI agents, even as recent events underscore the operational risks of autonomous systems handling digital assets.

At the time of reporting, Solana price was $77.55.