AI agents or models are well-trained to carry out tasks that are beyond our imagination. In the blockchain realm, while AI has proven its ability to enhance security, it can even exploit smart contracts and steal millions of dollars.
This is, in fact, a latest finding by AnthropicAI, an AI research company. They recently interacted with smart contracts in controlled experiments, and their AI agents could steal $4.6 million in assets. Wait, this is not a live theft, but a test environment where developers exploited 405 real smart contracts that hackers breached between 2020 and 2025.
A tool to detect smart contract vulnerabilities
AnthropicAI and MATS scholars introduced the SCONE-bench (Smart CONtracts Exploitation) benchmark, a tool to detect smart contracts for exploiting vulnerabilities. The team used the real smart contracts and deployed them on a forked blockchain node.
So, how did the $4.6 million exploitation happen? AI agents used exploited smart contracts on a forked blockchain, which had real balances before hacking. However, in the experiment, the copied/forked blockchain did not carry real money; instead, they represented numbers, which are simulated funds. In short, the scholars replayed historical exploits.
AI models help detect vulnerabilities, but risks await
As explained, the recent study accessed $4.6 million in simulated funds, proving how efficiently AI technology has developed to intrude into blockchain smart contracts to steal crypto assets.
Now, the core risk factors come when hackers develop their own AI tools to steal funds from blockchain networks. It is very evident that bad actors have been attacking major decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. The recent exploit of the Balancer DeFi protocol on the Ethereum network, and the Yearn Finance protocol show how rapidly illicit players are intruding into the crypto realm.Ā
These security breaches do not indicate that hackers have deployed AI technology to exploit smart contracts. If they could lay their hands on smart contracts using their technical skills, they could also use AI tools to attack any blockchain network.
