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Weaponized Trading Bots Drain $1M From Crypto Users via AI-Generated YouTube Scam

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Over $1 million has been siphoned from unsuspecting crypto users through malicious smart contracts posing as MEV trading bots, according to a new report by SentinelLABS.

The campaign leveraged AI-generated YouTube videos, aged accounts, and obfuscated Solidity code to bypass basic user scrutiny and gain access to crypto wallets.

Scammers appeared to be using AI-generated avatars and voices to reduce production costs and scale up video content.

These tutorials are published on aged YouTube accounts populated with unrelated content and manipulated comment sections to give the illusion of credibility. In some cases, the videos are unlisted and likely distributed via Telegram or DMs.

At the center of the scam was a smart contract promoted as a profitable arbitrage bot. Victims were instructed via YouTube tutorials to deploy the contract using Remix, fund it with ETH, and call a “Start()” function.

In reality, however, the contract routed funds to a concealed, attacker-controlled wallet, using techniques such as XOR obfuscation (which hides data by scrambling it with another value) and large decimal-to-hex conversions (which convert large numbers into wallet-readable address formats) to mask the destination address (which makes fund recovery trickier).

The most successful identified address — 0x8725…6831 — pulled in 244.9 ETH ( approximately $902,000) via deposits from unsuspecting deployers. That wallet was linked to a video tutorial posted by the account @Jazz_Braze, still live on YouTube with over 387,000 views.

“Each contract sets the victim’s wallet and a hidden attacker EOA as co-owners,” SentinelLABS researchers noted. “Even if the victim doesn’t activate the main function, fallback mechanisms allow the attacker to withdraw deposited funds.”

As such, the scam’s success has been broad but uneven. While most attacker wallets netted four to five figures, only one (tied to Jazz_Braze) cleared over $900K in value. Funds were later moved in bulk to secondary addresses, likely to further fragment traceability.

Meanwhile, SentinelLABS warns users to avoid deploying “free bots” advertised on social media, especially those involving manual smart contract deployment. The firm emphasized that even code deployed in testnets should be reviewed thoroughly, as similar tactics can easily migrate across chains.

Read more: Multisig Failures Dominate as $3.1B Is Lost in Web3 Hacks in the First Half

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CoinDesk 20 Performance Update: Index Drops 2.5% as Nearly All Constituents Decline

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CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.

The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 4248.74, down 2.5% (-109.09) since 4 p.m. ET on Monday.

One of 20 assets is trading higher.

9am CoinDesk 20 Update for 2025-09-15: vertical

Leaders: AVAX (+0.6%) and BCH (-0.8%).

Laggards: UNI (-9.9%) and LINK (-7.0%).

The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.

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Pantera-Backed Solana Treasury Firm Helius Raises $500M, Stock Soars Over 200%

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Helius Medical Technologies (HSDT) announced on Monday it’s raising more than $500 million in a private financing round to create a Solana-focused treasury company.

The vehicle will hold SOL, the native token of the Solana blockchain, as its reserve asset and aims to expand to more than $1.25 billion via stock warrants tied to the deal, the press release said.

The financing was led by Pantera Capital and Summer Capital, with participation from investors including Animoca Brands, FalconX and HashKey Capital.

Shares of the firm rallied over 200% above $24 in pre-market trading following the announcement. Solana was down 4% over the past 24 hours.

The firm is joining the latest wave of new digital asset treasuries, or DATs, with public companies pivoting to raise funds and buy cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) or SOL.

Helius is set to rival with the recently launched Forward Industries (FORD) with a $1.65 billion war chest backed by Galaxy Digital and others. That firm confirmed on Monday that has already purchased 6.8 million tokens for roughly $1.58 billion last week.

Helius’ plan is to use Solana’s yield-bearing design to generate income on the holdings, earning staking rewards of around 7% as well as deploying tokens in decentralized finance (DeFi) and lending opportunities. Incoming executive chairman Joseph Chee, founder of Summer Capital and a former UBS banker, will lead the firm’s digital asset strategy alongside Pantera’s Cosmo Jiang and Dan Morehead.

«As a pioneer in the digital asset treasury space, having participated in the formation of the strategy at Twenty One Capital (CEP) with Tether, Softbank and Cantor, Bitmine (BMNR) with Tom Lee and Mozayyx as well as EightCo (OCTO) with Dan Ives and Sam Altman, we have built the expertise to set up the pre-eminent Solana treasury vehicle,» Cosmo Jiang, general partner at Pantera Capital, said in a statement.

«There is a real opportunity to drive the flywheel of creating shareholder value that Michael Saylor has pioneered with Strategy by accelerating Solana adoption,» he added.

Read more: Solana Surges as Galaxy Scoops Up Over $700M Tokens From Exchanges

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Boundless Launches Mainnet on Base, Ushering in Universal Zero-Knowledge Compute

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Boundless, the zero-knowledge (ZK) compute marketplace incubated by RISC Zero, has officially launched its Mainnet on Base, giving every blockchain access to verifiable compute.

The milestone builds on the network’s incentivized testnet, which went live in July and stress-tested Boundless’ architecture under real-world conditions.

During that Beta phase, Boundless operated like a decentralized marketplace where developers seeking ZK proofs for applications such as rollups, bridges and privacy protocols could connect with independent provers, or ZK miners, who generated those proofs.

The launch introduced Proof of Verifiable Work, an incentive mechanism that rewards provers based on the volume, speed and complexity of their computations. Community participation was strong, fueled in part by the anticipation of $ZKC token rewards.

With Monday’s mainnet launch, those capabilities are now operational at scale. The team behind Boundless says it can deliver verifiable compute across chains, enabling developers to build applications that preserve privacy while scaling seamlessly between ecosystems.

Some key protocols have started to integrate Boundless into their systems. Wormhole is integrating Boundless to add ZK verification to Ethereum consensus, making cross-chain transfers more secure.

BOB, a hybrid Bitcoin rollup, is tapping Boundless to allow EVM applications to interoperate with Bitcoin using proofs that inherit Bitcoin’s security while drawing on Ethereum’s liquidity. And staking protocol Lido is deploying Boundless to secure validator exits with transparent proofs, strengthening trust and auditability for its crypto assets.

“For the first time, developers on any chain can access abundant zero-knowledge compute to build complex applications that scale across ecosystems without sacrificing decentralization,” said Shiv Shankar, the CEO of Boundless.

Read more: Risc Zero’s ‘Boundless’ Incentivized Testnet Goes Live

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