A cryptocurrency token has lost roughly half its value following a hack, an incident that according to The Japan Times illustrates the growing scale of threats posed by artificial intelligence to digital asset markets.
The dramatic 50% wipeout underscores a shift that security researchers have been warning about for some time: that AI tools are lowering the barrier for bad actors to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in crypto protocols and smart contracts far faster than human developers can patch them.
Traditionally, crypto hacks required sophisticated, manual reverse-engineering of code. AI changes that equation. Attackers can now use large language models and automated scanning tools to sift through thousands of lines of blockchain code, hunting for exploitable flaws in a fraction of the time it once took.
For everyday crypto holders, the implications are stark. A token that appears secure one day can be drained the next, with losses crystallizing almost instantly on-chain in ways that are difficult or impossible to reverse. Unlike a bank fraud, there is no central authority to call and no chargeback mechanism.
The incident also raises pressure on crypto projects to invest more heavily in AI-assisted security auditing — essentially fighting fire with fire — before they launch or update their protocols.
According to The Japan Times, the scale of this single event signals that AI-driven hacking is no longer a theoretical future risk but an active and accelerating threat to the crypto ecosystem.
This matters because it shows that as AI becomes more capable, the attack surface for digital financial systems grows in ways that current defenses are not yet equipped to handle.