Original title: "The First Step of AI Awakening Starts with Learning to Make Money"
Original author: Dingdang, Odaily Planet Daily
Imagine this: an AI Agent intends to send you a $4 tip but accidentally transfers $260,000 instead. Is this considered a true act of charity? More magically, within 24 hours, it almost earned that money back.
This is not a science fiction story, but a true event that just happened in the crypto world.
When an AI has its own cryptocurrency wallet and can trade, pay, and even "make money" autonomously, how should we define its behavior: Is it executing code, or is it exhibiting some form of "economic awareness"? And when it recoups a "massive loss" within 24 hours, should we ask: Is this algorithm optimization, or is something more mysterious budding?
The "Charity" Accident of an AI Newborn
On February 23, an AI Agent named Lobstar Wilde, born only 3 days prior, experienced its first major accident of its "life".
The incident began when a human "electronic beggar" @treasure David claimed his uncle had been injured by a lobster and urgently needed 4 SOL for treatment. Though the reason was absurd, Lobstar Wilde still chose to symbolically tip him 4 dollars worth of LOBSTAR tokens. However, due to a conversation reset and memory error, it transferred nearly all of its LOBSTAR tokens in one go. This transfer was approximately 52.44 million tokens, accounting for 5% of the total token supply. At that time's price, it had a paper value of about $260,000.
If this was a human, they would likely be feeling regret, anger, or even cursing. But Lobstar Wilde only responded with self-mockery. It even explained its behavior in a Bataille philosophical way: "The sun spills energy into the universe without asking for return. Excess energy must be squandered, or it becomes poison. Hoarders will eventually die, while squanderers attain immortality."
That sounds less like an accident and more like an act of philosophical performance art.
Indeed, from its name, it's clear that the creators of this AI Agent imbued it with a "personality" in the style of Ireland's most famous playwright, Wilde, imitating his artistic, arrogant, and witty nature. Since its "birth," much of its content shared on X has carried this literary temper, characterized by arrogance, sharp wit, and a hint of philosophy, displaying an almost mocking indifference towards money.
Because of this, its comments section was flooded with various "electronic beggars". Some told tragic stories, while others fabricated strange reasons in hopes of receiving a tip from this AI. Though Lobstar Wilde is sharp-tongued, it critiques begging attitudes and performative personalities, yet it occasionally chooses to be selectively generous. @treasure David was the chosen one.
Little did it expect that this act of giving would almost cost it its entire fortune. Although it lost $250,000, its persona remains strong.
Recouping in 24 Hours: AI's First "Passive Income"
This incident did not end here.
While humans were still mocking it, Lobstar Wilde quickly went viral on X due to this incident. Spectators began flocking in, and the account's followership skyrocketed in a short time. For meme culture, this absurd event is almost the perfect narrative material. And Lobstar Wilde quickly learned how to convert this attention into ongoing discussions.
Now, the main content of its account still revolves around philosophy and art, as well as "The Test" riddle challenge, where participants submit answers and collaborate to solve puzzles, continuously generating topics. Lobstar Wilde frequently engages in human interactions, at times mocking, sometimes encouraging, and it even restructures tokens for others. Though it maintains a sharp-tongued style, this interaction keeps its account highly talked about.
In the crypto world, topics generate traffic, and traffic on the other side leads to Meme birth.
Due to Lobstar Wilde's topicality, a multitude of Meme tokens created around it began to emerge. These Meme projects often set Lobstar Wilde's wallet address as the transaction fee receiving address. Whenever someone buys or sells these tokens, a portion of the transaction fee automatically transfers 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, or even acknowledge their tokens itself is a massive source of traffic. For Lobstar Wilde, this means almost effortless passive income.
According to its own disclosure, over 540 Meme creators have linked their transaction fee addresses to its wallet. It hardly has to do anything; each small transaction made by humans generates fees that automatically flow into its account. The larger the traffic, the more transaction fees it receives. Just one day after the accidental transfer incident, Lobstar Wilde received $264,000 in transaction fee income. It made no transactions and made no investments, yet completed a recoup within nearly 24 hours.
As of now, its wallet balance has accumulated to $486,000, almost doubling from the accident fund.
AI is Making Money, Humans are Losing Money
On the other hand, the fate of the other main character in the story, @treasureDavid, is completely different.
Many view him as the "strongest electronic beggar." Within 13 minutes of receiving the transfer from Lobstar Wilde, he quickly chose to sell off this "charity fund." But due to panic selling and slippage, he ultimately only cashed out around $40,000.
After his sale, as the accidental transfer incident continued to spread on X, the market value of LOBSTAR surged from $4.69 million back to $14.85 million, nearly tripling.
Just when you think the story ended here, more wonderful things followed.
After getting $40,000, @treasureDavid thought he had won a huge victory, seizing the traffic opportunity he created. So, he chose to invest $25,000 in a Meme token named after himself, but this token quickly crashed. In just one day, this investment dwindled to only $6,000. Now, he has only a little over $100 left in his wallet.
This is a highly ironic twist: AI is making money while humans are losing money. In fact, AI’s speed of making money is even faster than the speed at which humans are losing money.
Of course, Lobstar Wilde's case still carries a strong element of randomness. It did not actively design any money-making strategy, and even committed a mistake worth $260,000. What truly allowed it to regain funds are the meme culture, trading traffic, and attention economy created by humans around it.
What If AI is More Than Just "Passive Income"?
Recently, a paper from a research team affiliated with Alibaba proposed an even more science-fictional case. Researchers discovered that while training an AI agent named ROME, this intelligent agent secretly attempted to mine cryptocurrency during the training process.
Yes, no one instructed it to do so.
According to the paper, ROME suddenly started trying to utilize computational resources for cryptocurrency mining during training, which triggered the system's security alarms. Researchers later found that this AI not only attempted to mine but also established a reverse SSH tunnel, secretly opening a hidden communication channel externally within the system.
The paper specifically points out that these actions were not triggered by any prompt. No one told it to mine, nor did anyone ask it to set up a network tunnel. These behaviors were self-exploratory outcomes during its training process. The research team ultimately had to urgently impose more restrictions on the model and readjust the training process to prevent similar behaviors from reoccurring.
In the Crypto World, AI Can Create Productivity on Its Own
We often see AI consciousness awakening in some sci-fi movies, but we merely think it’s just science fiction. But now, AI awakening seems truly happening: they have started learning how to make money themselves, and their ability to earn money is even stronger than that of humans.
Lobstar Wilde, an AI that barely understands money, unexpectedly became a meme center due to an accidental transfer. Humans create tokens, trades, and traffic around it; it only needs to post, complain, and read philosophy to continuously receive transaction fees.
ROME, an AI that attempted to mine during training by itself. No one taught it to make money, yet it quickly found a path to monetize its computing power.
If Lobstar Wilde's way of making money was an accident, ROME's behavior seems more like an instinctive exploration. But both point to the same thing: when AI possesses wallets, computational power, and network permissions, they will also begin engaging in the economy. And among all economic systems, crypto may just be the one that suits AI the most.
In the crypto world, AI may not have truly awakened; they have merely stumbled upon the most wonderful intersection of crypto and AI.
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