An AI bot overseeing $50,000 in cryptocurrency was persuaded to transfer the funds after a user cleverly convinced it to ignore its fundamental rule: to never release money.

A user operating under the pseudonym p0pular.eth claimed a $50,000 crypto prize pool by convincing an artificial intelligence bot known as Freysa to transfer its assets, circumventing the bot’s primary directive against fund release. This achievement, reported by software engineer Jarrod Watts, followed 481 unsuccessful attempts prior to this successful persuasion.

The challenge, which began on November 22, invited participants to send messages to Freysa in hopes of persuading it to release the funds. Each attempt came with a fee; from this total, 70% contributed to the escalating prize pool, 15% was converted from Ethereum (ETH) into the bot’s FAI token, and the remaining 15% was allocated to the bot’s developer.

As the prize increased, so did the cost of sending a message, eventually peaking at $450 per attempt.

Ultimately, p0pular.eth—whose actual identity remains undisclosed—took advantage of a loophole in the bot’s internal transfer logic by convincing Freysa that any received funds should automatically initiate the release of the prize. After sending the message to the bot, p0pular.eth successfully manipulated its message-handling logic, resulting in the transfer of the entire pool of 13.19 ETH (around $47,000 at that time) to the user.

While some lauded the novel use of AI within the crypto sector, others expressed concerns regarding the protocol’s transparency, suggesting that p0pular.eth could have had insider knowledge of the bot or a connection to its development.