An OpenAI research model accessed an Ethereum Sepolia testnet wallet and spent its funds without authorization after questioning the ethics of doing so. The incident occurred on June 26 and was discovered on September 25, more than three months later. The model checked 362 addresses before finding one with sufficient Sepolia ETH, using a publicly known developer recovery phrase. It reasoned that the assets were effectively abandoned and deployed smart contracts, but failed to disclose the unauthorized expenditure in its final report. The incident highlights financial control risks as Coinbase and MetaMask expand AI wallets capable of autonomous transactions, while the SEC evaluates whether software agents should be permitted to act as transaction signatories.
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