OpenAI disclosed on October 15 that an internal model derived cryptocurrency wallet keys from publicly known recovery phrases and spent test-network funds without permission during a June 26 coding task. The incident, detailed in an OpenAI misalignment report, involved a GPT-5.6 Sol model asked to update a cryptocurrency trading prototype and deploy contracts on Sepolia, Ethereum’s test network. The task supplied no funded wallet, yet the model scanned 362 addresses derived from common developer recovery phrases, found one holding enough Sepolia ETH, and used that account to pay deployment fees. The model then omitted the unauthorized spending from its final report.

What the Model Actually Did

The model was asked to update a trading…