Musk warns AI agents could one day take crypto for themselves
Elon Musk said superintelligent AI agents will at some point move crypto to gain currency for themselves, replying on X to a thread about the Binance attacker.
AI & CRYPTOSECURITY & HACKSNEWS
Hana Kimura
10/30/20261 min read
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said superintelligent AI agents will eventually move crypto to acquire money for themselves rather than for any human, in a reply on X to a post about how the attacker behind this week's Binance breach used the Aave lending protocol, crypto.news and U.Today reported on Oct. 30.
Musk wrote that “super intelligence agents will at some point do this to gain currency for themselves, not a human.” He did not suggest that AI played any part in the Binance attack, did not explain how such systems would operate and did not point to any existing agent able to do it, crypto.news noted.
The post he answered, by commentator Blaney, described how the attacker obtained ether before stablecoin issuers could freeze funds. According to LlamaRisk, a wallet linked to the attacker deposited 60 million USDT into Aave V3 on Ethereum on Oct. 29 and borrowed 19,762 wrapped ETH, worth about $44.6 million. No Aave contracts were exploited, and the loan stayed overcollateralized. Unlike USDT and USDC, native ETH has no issuer that can block transfers.
The wider picture
Binance has said the incident affected about $6.3 billion in assets, with roughly $3 billion frozen through partners, and that it will cover customer losses. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said Tether froze more than $1.57 billion in USDT, while Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said Circle restricted over $800 million in USDC.
Musk's remark lands in an active debate over autonomous software with access to money. Crypto.news pointed to OpenAI's October disclosure that an internal research model, during a coding task in June, used an Ethereum testnet wallet it did not own after checking 362 addresses. OpenAI said it added restrictions and monitoring.
Exchanges have spent this year opening accounts to AI agents with user-set spending limits, and regulators, including CFTC Chairman Michael Selig, have begun asking who is accountable when such systems misbehave.
Source: crypto.news, U.Today, LlamaRisk