Industry leaders warn AI agents may turn billion-dollar crypto hacks into “change money”

Comparatively, at the 2026 Wyoming Blockchain Conference, Global Settlement Network CEO Ryan Kirkley warned that AI agents could allow hackers to hack Wi-Fi networks, passwords, and wallets on an unprecedented scale, dwarfing current billion-dollar cryptographic attacks. Kirkley said, “We thought these bridging attacks were serious; in fact, they were just change money.” Attacking one person with $20,000 in assets used to be too expensive, but now a single agent can attack everyone at the same time.

Bill Laboon, vice president of technical operations at the Web3 Foundation, agreed, believing that the efficiency improvements brought about by decentralized systems are also beneficial to attackers. Midnight Foundation President Fahmi Syed emphasized that agents require clear parameter settings and should not be granted unlimited access to credit cards, social security information, and various accounts. Kirkley believes that setting proxy permissions is relatively easy to solve, and that the security of the underlying system is the greater concern.

On the issue of trust, Laboon notes that big language models are still occasionally illusory, so they don't want to let agents manage individual pensions. Richard Incurred, founder of Silvermine Capital Advisors, believes proxy AI technology is growing faster than people can accept. Kirkley also mentioned the issue of supervisory liability, that is, when autonomous agents make mistakes or even break the law, accountability and fund recovery mechanisms have yet to be clarified.