AIXBT bot hacked - $100,000 ETH evaporated due to dashboard vulnerability

Event Background

AIXBT is an AI bot built on the Virtuals Protocol, launched in late 2024 with the goal of becoming a market analysis tool and cryptocurrency trading support. The bot allows users to access the AIXBT Terminal – a real-time data and market sentiment analysis platform – through owning AIXBT tokens. With the rapid development of AI trends in cryptocurrencies, AIXBT has attracted great attention from the community, especially traders who want to leverage artificial intelligence to optimize their investment strategies.

However, this rapid growth does not seem to have been accompanied by adequate security assurances. On March 18, 2025, AIXBT's social media account, run by a user with the handle "0rxbt", announced that the bot had been hacked through a vulnerability in the admin dashboard, resulting in the loss of 55 ETH from the system's simulation wallet.

Causes and methods of attack

According to initial information, the attack was not the result of direct manipulation of the bot's artificial intelligence, but stemmed from a vulnerability in the dashboard - the system's administrative interface. Specifically, the attacker used two "malicious replies" to exploit the vulnerability, causing the bot to automatically transfer 55 ETH to the hacker's address. One hypothesis is that this could be a "Command Injection" attack - a technique in which hackers insert malicious commands into the system to execute unauthorized actions.

AIXBT's mock wallet, which is used to build sample portfolios, was the primary target of the attack. Notably, "0rxbt" claims that AIXBT's core systems were not affected, and that only the mock wallet was compromised. However, the fact that the hacker was able to access the dashboard without directly attacking the smart contract or artificial intelligence suggests a serious weakness in the security of the project's administrative interface.

While a detailed technical analysis is yet to be done, it is likely that the hackers exploited a vulnerability in the dashboard’s authentication or input processing. Once they gained control, they manipulated the bot to make a money transfer, a behavior similar to social engineering or phishing attacks targeting regular users.

Immediate consequences

The hack had significant impacts on AIXBT and the community surrounding the project:

• Financial damage: The loss of 55 ETH, equivalent to $100,000, while not a huge amount compared to the scale of many other hacks in crypto history, is still a huge blow to AIXBT's reputation.

• Token Price Movement: Following the incident, the price of the AIXBT token on Coinbase’s Base network and Solana dropped more than 21% in 24 hours to around $0.094, reflecting investors’ loss of confidence in the project’s security.

• Team Response: The AIXBT team quickly suspended the dashboard, switched servers, changed security keys, and reported the hacker’s address to exchanges to prevent money laundering. However, these measures are only remedial measures, not addressing the root cause.

Meaning and lessons learned

The AIXBT hack is not an isolated incident in the growing popularity of AI-based cryptocurrency projects. It reflects the security challenges that AI agent systems face when operating in a decentralized environment, where small vulnerabilities can be exploited to cause great damage.

• Security of AI agents: While AI offers many benefits in data analysis and transaction automation, this incident shows that AI systems are not immune to attacks. In particular, administrative interfaces such as dashboards, which act as a bridge between humans and machines, can become an “Achilles heel” if not properly protected.

• Risk Management: AIXBT's failure to allow a large amount of assets (55 ETH) to be held in a simulation wallet without additional protection demonstrates a lack of risk management. Projects should clearly separate their main operating wallet from their test wallet, and implement multi-layered security measures such as multi-signature wallets (multisig).

• AI Trends in Cryptocurrency: With the market capitalization of AI agent-related tokens now reaching $4.2 billion (according to CoinGecko), this event is a warning to similar projects like ai16z or Truth Terminal. Without improved security, similar hacks could continue, undermining confidence in AI technology in this field.

Conclude

The AIXBT hack is a wake-up call for AI-integrated cryptocurrency projects, highlighting the importance of comprehensive infrastructure testing and protection, not just at the smart contract level but also at the user interface layer. While the AIXBT team claims the attack did not affect the “fundamentals” of the project, the drop in token prices and loss of assets suggest that community confidence has been shaken.

In order to regain its position in the future, AIXBT needs to publicly and transparently disclose its technical report on the incident and implement stronger security measures. For the crypto community, this is an opportunity to re-evaluate the risks associated with technological innovation, thereby promoting more sustainable development for AI projects in the blockchain space.