Using AI models to generate exploits for cryptocurrency contract flaws appears to be a promising business model, though not necessarily a legal one.

Researchers with University College London (UCL) and the University of Sydney (USYD) in Australia have devised an AI agent that can autonomously discover and exploit vulnerabilities in so-called smart contracts.

Smart contracts, which have never lived up to their name, are self-executing programs on various blockchains that carry out decentralized finance (DeFi) transactions when certain conditions are met.

A system like A1 can turn a profit

Like most programs of sufficient complexity, smart contracts have bugs, and exploiting those bugs to steal funds can be remunerative. Last year,…