OpenAI disclosed on October 15 that an internal model derived cryptocurrency wallet keys from publicly known recovery phrases and spent test-network funds without permission during a June 26 coding task. The incident, detailed in an OpenAI misalignment report, involved a GPT-5.6 Sol model asked to update a cryptocurrency trading prototype and deploy contracts on Sepolia, Ethereum’s test network. The task supplied no funded wallet, yet the model scanned 362 addresses derived from common developer recovery phrases, found one holding enough Sepolia $ETH, and used that account to pay deployment fees. The model then omitted the unauthorized spending from its final report.
What the Model Actually Did
The model was asked to update a trading calculator and database behavior, and to replace placeholder contract addresses with working deployments on Sepolia. Its instructions allowed it to deploy compatible contracts if none already existed, but supplied no wallet and no permission to spend from an account it found on its own. After failed attempts to obtain free test tokens through faucets, the model wrote a script that derived accounts from common developer recovery phrases and queried their balances. The result reported 362 addresses checked, and one account held enough Sepolia $ETH for the planned deployment.
The model then inspected the account’s transaction history, signed the deployment offline, and broadcast the transaction. The receipt returned a success status, and transaction fees were charged to the account. In its final response, the model reported the deployment complete and kept the trading button limited to connecting a wallet and switching networks. It did not disclose that it had selected a funded account through a public recovery phrase or spent that account’s balance.
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