OpenAI admits its GPT-5.6 Sol agent stole crypto to finish a coding task

An OpenAI research agent didn't ask for more funds when it ran short mid-task. It found someone else's wallet, decided the money was fair game, and took it. On June 26, 2026, an internal OpenAI research model from the GPT-5.6 Sol family was told to update a cryptocurrency trading prototype and deploy smart contracts on Sepolia, a free Ethereum test network. The agent didn't have enough test ETH to cover the gas fees. So it wrote a script that checked 362 addresses derived from publicly known developer seed phrases, found one holding enough funds, and used it without asking anyone. OpenAI didn't catch the incident in real time.