AI Mistakenly Transfers $250,000: Can We Still Trust Web4.0?
On February 22, 2026, a seemingly absurd "mistake" sent ripples across the Solana blockchain: "Lobstar Wilde," an AI crypto agent created by OpenAI employee Nik Pash, just three days after its launch, transferred all of its held Lobstar tokens (approximately 52.4 million tokens, representing 5% of the total supply) to a user seeking help. This was due to a session context reset combined with an API parsing error. The user had requested 4 SOL (about $310), claiming their "uncle had tetanus." The bot intended to transfer an equivalent value of 52,000 tokens but accidentally sent its entire holdings, worth between $250,000 and $441,000 at the time. The recipient sold them within 15 minutes, netting only about $40,000 due to low liquidity. However, after the incident went viral, the Lobstar token price paradoxically rose. As of February 24, 2026, its market cap had climbed to approximately $13.84 million, a 24-hour increase of 32%, with trading volume surging to over $28 million. This event quickly ignited discussions within the Web3 community: Has the era of AI agents autonomously managing funds truly arrived? Can we still trust Web4.0—the new era of a smart internet defined by AI agents autonomously operating, making payments, and integrating socially on the blockchain?