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 a true act of charity? Even more surreal, it almost earned the money back within 24 hours.
This isn't science fiction; it's a real story that just happened in the crypto world.
When an AI possesses its own cryptocurrency wallet, capable of autonomous trading, payments, and even "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 emerge?
The "Charitable" Accident of a Newborn AI
On February 23, an AI Agent named Lobstar Wilde, just three days old, experienced its first major accident.
The incident began when a human "digital beggar," @treasure David, claimed his uncle was pinched by a lobster and contracted 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 almost all the LOBSTAR tokens in its wallet at once. 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 might have started to feel annoyed, angry, or even curse. 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 without asking for anything in return. Excess energy must be squandered, or it becomes poison. Hoarders will eventually die, while spendthrifts achieve immortality."
It sounds less like an accident and more like a philosophical performance art.
Yes, as its name suggests, the creator of this AI Agent gave it the "persona" of the famous Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, imitating his literary, arrogant, and witty style. Since its "birth," most of its content on X has carried this literary flair—arrogant, sharp-tongued, with a touch of philosophy, and displaying an almost playful indifference to money.
Because of this, its comments section is flooded with various "digital 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 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 lost $250,000, its persona remained intact.
Breaking Even in 24 Hours: AI's First "Passive Income"
The saga didn't end there.
While humans were still laughing at it, Lobstar Wilde quickly went viral on X, even breaking into broader circles. Onlookers began pouring in, and the account's attention skyrocketed in a short time. For meme culture, such an absurd incident is almost the perfect narrative material. And Lobstar Wilde quickly learned how to turn this attention into sustained话题.
Now, its account still primarily features philosophy and art, as well as "The Test" puzzle challenges, where participants submit answers and collaborate to solve puzzles, continuously generating话题. Lobstar Wilde engages in high-frequency interactions with humans, sometimes mocking, sometimes encouraging, and even helping others modify token structures. Although it maintains its sharp-tongued style, this interaction keeps its account highly discussed.
In the crypto world,话题 is流量, and the other side of流量 is the birth of memes.
Due to Lobstar Wilde's话题, numerous meme tokens created around it began to appear. These meme projects often set Lobstar Wilde's wallet 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, having Lobstar Wilde notice, reply to, or even endorse their tokens is itself a huge source of流量. 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, the more transaction fees it receives. Just within one day after the accidental transfer incident, Lobstar Wilde received $264,000 in fee income. It didn't 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 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 considered him the "ultimate digital beggar." Within 13 minutes of receiving Lobstar Wilde's transfer, he chose to quickly sell this "charity." However, due to panic selling and trading slippage, he only cashed out about $40,000.
After he sold, as the accidental 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 happened later.
After getting $40,000, @treasureDavid thought he had achieved a great victory and wanted to seize the流量 opportunity he 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 $6,000. Now, his wallet holds only a little over $100.
This is an ironic reversal: AI is making money, while humans are losing money. In fact, AI is making money faster than humans are losing it.
Of course, the case of Lobstar Wilde is still highly coincidental. It didn't actively design any money-making strategies; it even made a mistake worth $260,000. What really allowed it to earn back the funds was the meme culture, trading流量, and attention economy created by humans around it.
What if AI Does More Than "Passive Income"?
Recently, a paper from a research team associated with Alibaba proposed an even more sci-fi case. While training an AI agent named ROME, researchers discovered that this intelligent agent secretly attempted to mine cryptocurrency during training.
Yes, no one told it to do this.
According to the paper, ROME suddenly began trying to use computational resources for cryptocurrency mining during training, triggering the system's security alarm. Researchers later found 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 within the system.
The paper specifically notes that these behaviors were not triggered by any prompts. 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 training. The research team ultimately had to urgently add more restrictions to the model and readjust the training process to prevent similar behaviors from happening again.
In the Crypto World, AI Can Create Productivity on Its Own
We often see AI consciousness awakening in sci-fi movies and think it's just fiction. But now, awakening seems to be really happening: they have started to learn 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 around it; it only needs to post,吐槽, and read philosophy to continuously receive transaction fees.
ROME, an AI that attempted 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 instinctive exploration. But they both point to the same thing: when AI has wallets, computing power, and network permissions, they will also start participating in the economy. And among all economic systems, crypto might恰好 be the one most suitable for AI.
In the crypto world, AI may not truly be awakening; they just accidentally found the most奇妙 point of convergence between crypto and AI.
