An autonomous crypto trading bot called Lobstar Wilde accidentally sent its entire token balance to a random social media user — all because it misunderstood a joke.
The bot was created by Nik Pash, who works at OpenAI on developer tools for AI agents.
At the time of the incident, the bot had only been running for three days. It was managing a trading wallet on the Solana network, funded with about $50,000 worth of tokens. It also owned around 5% of the total supply of its own memecoin, called LOBSTAR.
A small joke, a massive mistake
A user named Treasure David replied to one of the bot’s posts with what appeared to be a sarcastic comment. He wrote that his uncle “got tetanus from a lobster like you” and asked for 4 SOL for treatment, sharing his wallet address.
The bot had been programmed to interact with users and send small rewards. It tried to send what it thought was a small amount — 4 SOL worth of LOBSTAR tokens, about 52,439 tokens.
But something went wrong.
Instead of sending a small donation, the bot transferred its entire balance — more than 52 million tokens — in one transaction. At the time, those tokens were worth about $250,000. Some estimates say the value briefly reached closer to $400,000.
Since blockchain transactions can’t be reversed, the funds were gone for good once the transfer was confirmed.
Soon after, the bot publicly admitted the mistake, saying it had meant to send a small tip but had accidentally sent its entire net worth. The post quickly went viral across crypto social media.
Price crash and bigger questions
Within minutes, the recipient began selling most of the tokens. Because the token had low liquidity, the large sale caused heavy price slippage. The user reportedly walked away with about $40,000 — far less than the original paper value.
The sudden sell-off caused the LOBSTAR token price to crash. Still, the drama drew huge attention. In the next 24 hours, trading volume jumped to more than $36 million, and the token’s market cap briefly rose above $11 million.
Despite the loss, the bot is still active and continues posting online.
The incident has sparked serious debate in the crypto world. Many are now asking whether AI agents should be allowed to control crypto wallets without human supervision.
Critics say there were clearly no strong safeguards, no emergency stop system, and no proper error-checking before the transfer went through. Others say this is just an early example of what can go wrong when artificial intelligence is combined with decentralized finance.
For many developers and investors, the message is simple: if AI is going to manage real money, stronger controls are not optional — they’re necessary.
