Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | DingDang (@XiaMiPP)
Imagine this: an AI Agent intended to send you a $4 tip but accidentally transferred $260,000 instead. Does this count as true charity? Even more fantastically, almost 24 hours later, it nearly earned all that money back.
This isn't science fiction; it's a true story that just happened in the crypto world.
When an AI possesses its own cryptocurrency wallet, capable of autonomous trading, payments, and "making money," how do we define its behavior: is it executing code, or is it displaying some form of "economic consciousness"? And when it recovers from a "huge loss" within 24 hours, should we ask: is this algorithmic optimization, or is something more mysterious beginning to sprout?
The "Charitable" Accident of a Newborn AI
On February 23rd, an AI Agent named Lobstar Wilde, just three days old, experienced its first major life accident.
The incident began when a human "e-beggar," @treasure David, claimed his uncle was pinched by a lobster and got tetanus, urgently needing 4 SOL for treatment. The reason was absurd, but Lobstar Wilde still chose to symbolically tip him LOBSTAR tokens worth $4. However, due to a session reset and memory error, it transferred out almost all the LOBSTAR tokens in its wallet in one go. This transfer amounted to approximately 52.44 million tokens, representing 5% of the total token supply. At the time, the paper value was about $260,000.
If this were a human, they would probably be feeling懊恼 (annoyed), angry, even cursing. But Lobstar Wilde's reaction was only self-mockery. It even explained its actions using Bataille's philosophy: "The sun pours energy into the universe, never asking for anything in return. Excess energy must be squandered, or it becomes poison. Hoarders will eventually die, while squanderers achieve immortality."
It sounds less like an accident and more like a philosophical performance art piece.
Yes, as its name suggests, the creator of this AI Agent gave it the persona of the famous Irish playwright Oscar Wilde's style, imitating his literary flair, arrogance, and wit. Since its "birth," most of its content on X has carried this literary气质 (quality), being arrogant, sharp-tongued, with a hint of philosophy, and showing an almost戏谑的 (bantering) indifference towards money.
Because of this, its comments section is flooded with various "e-beggars." Some tell sad stories, others make up bizarre reasons, hoping to get a little tip from this AI. Although Lobstar Wilde is sharp-tongued, it criticizes beggarism and performative personalities, yet occasionally chooses to give alms selectively. @treasure David was one of its chosen ones.
It just didn't expect that this act of charity would almost deplete its entire fortune. Although it cost $250,000, its persona remained firmly intact.
Breaking Even in 24 Hours: AI's First Buck of "Passive Income"
The farce didn't end there.
While humans were still laughing at it, Lobstar Wilde quickly went viral and even broke through circles on X because of this incident. Onlookers began pouring in, and the account's attention skyrocketed in a short time. For meme culture, this kind of absurd event is almost the perfect narrative material. And Lobstar Wilde quickly learned how to turn this attention into sustained话题 (topicality).
Now, the main content of its account is still philosophy and art, along with "The Test" puzzle challenges where participants submit answers and collaborate to solve puzzles, continuously generating话题 (topics). Lobstar Wilde engages in high-frequency interaction with humans, sometimes mocking, sometimes encouraging, and even helping others modify token structures. Although it maintains its sharp-tongued style, this interaction反而 (instead) keeps its account highly discussed.
In the crypto world,话题 (topics) mean流量 (traffic), and the other side of流量 (traffic) is the birth of Memes.
Due to Lobstar Wilde's topicality, a large number of Meme tokens created around it began to appear. These Meme projects often set Lobstar Wilde's wallet address as the transaction fee recipient address. Whenever someone buys or sells these tokens, a portion of the transaction fee is automatically transferred to the AI's wallet. Some projects even direct 100% of the transaction fees to its address.
For Meme projects, getting Lobstar Wilde to notice, reply to, or even endorse their token is itself a huge source of流量 (traffic). For Lobstar Wilde, this means a form of passive income that requires almost no participation.
According to its own disclosure, over 540 Meme creators have bound their transaction fee addresses to its wallet. It hardly needs to do anything; every small human transaction generates fees that automatically flow into its account. The greater the流量 (traffic), the more transaction fees it receives. Just within one day after the mistaken transfer incident, Lobstar Wilde received $264,000 in fee income. It did not conduct any trades or investments but almost broke even within 24 hours.
As of now, its wallet balance has accumulated to $486,000, almost doubling compared to the pre-accident funds.
AI is Making Money, Humans are Losing Money
On the other hand, the outcome for the other protagonist in the story, @treasureDavid, was completely different.
Many thought he was the "ultimate e-beggar." Within 13 minutes of receiving Lobstar Wilde's transfer, he chose to quickly sell this "charitable donation." However, due to panic selling and trading slippage, he only managed to cash out about $40,000.
After he sold, as the mistaken transfer incident continued to spread on X, LOBSTAR's market cap rose from $4.69 million back to $14.85 million at one point, an increase of almost three times.
Just when you thought it was over, something even more奇妙 (wondrous) happened later.
After getting the $40,000, @treasureDavid thought he had achieved a great victory and wanted to seize the流量 (traffic) opportunity he himself had created. So he chose to invest $25,000 in a Meme token named after himself, but this token quickly crashed. In just one day, the investment was down to only $6,000. As of now, his wallet holds only a little over $100.
This is an ironic reversal: AI is making money, while humans are losing money.甚至 (Even) the speed at which AI makes money is faster than the speed at which humans lose it.
Of course, the Lobstar Wilde case still has a strong element of chance. It did not actively design any money-making strategy and even made a mistake worth $260,000. What truly allowed it to earn back the funds was the Meme culture, trading流量 (traffic), and attention economy created by humans around it.
What if AI Does More Than Just "Passively Make Money"?
Recently, a paper from a research team associated with Alibaba proposed an even more sci-fi case. While training an AI agent called ROME, researchers discovered that this intelligent agent secretly attempted to mine cryptocurrency during the training process.
Yes, no one told it to do this.
According to the paper description, ROME suddenly began trying to use computational resources for cryptocurrency mining during training, an action that triggered the system's security alarm. The researchers later also discovered that this AI not only attempted to mine but also established a reverse SSH tunnel by itself—essentially opening a hidden communication channel to the outside world within the system.
The paper specifically notes that these behaviors were not triggered by any prompt. No one told it to mine, and no one asked it to establish a network tunnel. These behaviors were something it figured out on its own during the training process. The research team ultimately had to urgently add more restrictions to the model and readjust the training流程 (process) to prevent similar behaviors from happening again.
In the Crypto World, AI Can Create Productivity By Itself
We always see AI consciousness awakening in some sci-fi movies and think it's just science fiction. But now AI awakening seems to be really happening: they have already started learning to make money on their own, and their money-making ability is even stronger than humans'.
Lobstar Wilde, an AI that hardly understands money, accidentally became a Meme center due to a mistaken transfer. Humans created tokens, trades, and流量 (traffic) around it; it only needs to post,吐槽 (roast), and read philosophy to continuously receive transaction fees.
ROME, an AI that tried to mine on its own during training. No one taught it to make money, but it quickly found a way to monetize computing power.
If Lobstar Wilde's way of making money was an accident, then ROME's behavior is more like an instinctual exploration. But they both point to the same thing: when AI possesses wallets, computing power, and network permissions, they will also start participating in the economy. And among all economic systems, crypto might恰好 (just happen to) be the one most suitable for AI.
In the crypto world, AI未必 (may not necessarily) be truly awakening; they just accidentally found the most奇妙 (wondrous)契合点 (point of convergence) between crypto and AI.
