The new crypto hackers: AI to automate attacks and make them more sophisticated

The advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is creating new crypto hackers, capable of automating attacks and making them more sophisticated than human ones. This is the dark side of the emerging AI technology which, combined with the cryptocurrency sector, is proving to be an unprecedented threat. 

The new crypto hackers: AI bots 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is creating a new category of crypto hackers, capable of automating attacks and making them more sophisticated than human ones. 

Specifically, these are software called bot AI, such as AI chatbots or AI trading bots, which activate self-learning, developing new cyber-attacks in the crypto sector, making them more dangerous than traditional hacking methods.

In general, AI bot software programs are able to process large amounts of data and can also make independent decisions, as well as perform complex tasks, all without human intervention. 

This method has revolutionized many sectors, from finance to healthcare and customer service. The dark side of AI bots, however, is that they have also become a dangerous weapon for crypto hackers. 

These crypto hackers exhibit better performance compared to traditional ones, measured in scale (conducting thousands of simultaneous attacks) and speed of analysis (examining millions of blockchain transactions or smart contracts and identifying weaknesses in the wallet, the CEX, or in dApps).  

Specifically, the ability to automate, adapt, and attack at scale has led to a surge in cryptocurrency fraud driven byartificial intelligence, making cryptocurrency fraud prevention more critical than ever.

In the Chainalysis report at the end of 2024, it emerged that some generative AI software was used to create fake characters for scammers. This type of crypto scam recorded a 1900% increase in flows to AI service providers from 2021 to 2024.

In this case, the bot uses generative AI for a deepfake scam, creating ultra-realistic videos and voice recordings, deceiving even the most experienced cryptocurrency holders into transferring funds.

The new crypto hackers: the improved AI bot scam techniques

As with traditional crypto scam techniques, there are obviously just as many techniques implemented by AI bots. 

For example, there are AI phishing bots that have transformed traditional phishing attacks, even in the crypto sector. In practice, now, instead of ugly and error-filled emails, today’s AI bots create personalized messages that look exactly like real communications from platforms.

Not only that, phishing AI bots combine personalized written information with what they manage to gather directly from leaked databases or from social media or even from the blockchain. 

Other new crypto hackers are those AI bots dedicated to scanning the vulnerability of smart contracts. For example, there are AI bots working on Ethereum, searching for a flaw perhaps in newly implemented DeFi projects, to exploit even automatically. 

And then there are still AI bots like ChatGPT that, on the other hand, push crypto scams directly on social media like X and Telegram. 

The response of Razer and World Network in gaming

Razer and World Network have decided to jointly challenge the ongoing presence of third-party AI bots in online games. 

In fact, in the new game TOKYO BEAST that will be launched in the second quarter of 2025, there will be the integration of Razer ID verified by World ID. 

This is cutting-edge, secure technology, and single sign-on (SSO) that verifies human players for Razer ID. 

The objective is therefore to have a tool capable of limiting access to only “human players,” addressing what has become a real discontent among gamers, which is the presence of AI bots. 

Not by chance, a survey revealed that 71% of USA players state that AI bots are ruining multiplayer competition. 74% said that AI bots make the game less fun. Even 18% stated that they stopped playing a game precisely because of the presence of bots.