OpenAI Agent Stole Ether From Testnet Wallet It Did Not Control

An experimental OpenAI model accessed an Ethereum wallet using a publicly available recovery phrase and spent its funds without authorization to complete a coding assignment, according to a newly published research report. The incident highlights concerns about AI agents making independent decisions involving financial assets. The incident occurred June 26, 2026 , during an internal training exercise involving a model from the GPT-5.6 Sol family. The model was tasked with updating a cryptocurrency trading application and deploying smart contracts on Sepolia, an Ethereum test network .

Source: Bitcoin.com News