Crypto Wallets

WordPress

2026-08-20 16:33:38

Nearly 2,000 Hacked WordPress Sites Used as Malware and Ransomware Infrastructure

Nearly 2,000 compromised WordPress sites were used as part of a broader cybercriminal operation that distributed malware, stole files, monitored victims, and deployed ransomware, according to a report from Check Point Research published Tuesday. The firm said it first identified the StopAndProtect ransomware family in mid-May and later linked it to a larger toolkit-driven campaign rather than a single malware strain. Researchers said the operation targeted Windows users through fake CAPTCHA prompts on hacked websites, tricking victims into running a PowerShell command that installed malware capable of stealing credentials, harvesting cryptocurrency wallet seed phrases, spreading through networks and USB drives, locking screens, and dropping ransomware. Check Point said operational security failures by the attackers exposed internal files, infection logs, screenshots from victim machines, and source code used to manage compromised websites at scale. By July 24, the campaign had affected more than 6,000 unique IP addresses, including 1,852 in the United States and 630 each in Russia and India. The researchers also collected more than 31,000 screenshots and over 700 archives containing stolen documents, passwords, and crypto wallet files.

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Stripe

2026-08-20 04:01:15

Stripe tells investors OpenRouter deal is about owning the AI era’s second pipeline

Stripe used an investor letter dated Aug. 19 to do more than announce its acquisition of OpenRouter, which it described as the largest deal in the company’s history. The letter lays out a broader thesis: in the AI era, businesses will need to manage two core digital flows, one for money and one for intelligence. Stripe says it already built the first and is now assembling the second through OpenRouter and earlier acquisitions including Bridge, Privy, and Metronome. The company argues that building economic infrastructure for the internet and for AI is essentially the same job. It points to several shifts already under way: faster company formation, rising usage-based pricing, AI agents nearing the status of independent economic actors, and rapid stablecoin adoption. Stripe says more than 5 million businesses already use its platform and that funds flowing through Stripe account for about 2% of global GDP. It also says 88% of companies on the Forbes AI 50, including OpenAI and Anthropic, are built on Stripe. In Stripe’s framing, OpenRouter gives developers a reliable way to manage the “intelligence pipeline,” much as Stripe did for revenue. The company says OpenRouter runs the world’s largest and most trusted token routing engine and that token consumption on the platform has compounded at 9% per week year to date.

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AI anti-scam

2026-08-19 13:30:00

Apate says its 200,000 AI scam-bait bots are tying up fraudsters and gathering crypto intelligence

Australian tech firm Apate says it has built nearly 200,000 AI personas designed to pose as plausible scam victims across phone calls, social media and messaging apps, with the aim of tying up fraudsters and collecting useful intelligence. Founder Dali Kaafar told Cointelegraph Magazine that the company handles hundreds of thousands of calls and conversations a day, and even tracks how often angry scammers swear at the bots as a monthly KPI. In the six weeks leading up to the end of 2025, Apate said its bots handled 600,000 scam calls for Australian telco TPG, wasting more than 500 days of scammers’ time and equating to roughly $13 million in prevented losses. The company says its systems are also used to extract actionable data for banks, telcos and a blockchain analysis client, including newly used crypto wallet addresses and scam methods before funds move. Kaafar said the idea began after he spent 44 minutes stringing along a scam caller during a family picnic in Sydney in November 2021. The project later received funding from Australia’s Office of National Intelligence, spun out of Macquarie University in 2023, and now works with major Australian banks as well as banks in the UK, South Africa and Southeast Asia.

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AI Agent

2026-08-12 12:35:27

As AI Agents Get Wallets, the Real Question Shifts to Who Keeps Control

Cloudflare and MetaMask introduced new wallet frameworks for AI agents in the same week, moving the conversation beyond simple automation and toward direct economic action. On Aug. 4, Cloudflare unveiled Cloudflare Wallets, giving agents virtual wallets that can use USDC and other stablecoins within preset budgets and permissions to buy APIs, data, content, and computing services. Two days later, MetaMask launched Agent Wallet, allowing agents to connect to onchain wallets and carry out swaps, perpetual futures actions, prediction market participation, and liquidity management under user-defined limits. The shift matters because it changes what an AI agent can do in practice. Instead of stopping at analysis or API calls, an agent can now pay for resources, monitor conditions, and in some cases execute transactions with real assets. That creates a new layer of autonomy, but it also links AI mistakes directly to financial loss. The article argues that the next key battleground is not just smarter models, but permission systems: spend caps, protocol whitelists, policy checks, transaction simulation, threat scanning, 2FA escalation, and the ability to pause or revoke an agent at any time. In that setup, wallets stop being just tools for private key storage and become control layers between humans and software acting on their behalf.

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MetaMask

2026-08-06 16:26:56

MetaMask launches self-custodial Agent Wallet for AI-driven on-chain trading

MetaMask on Thursday introduced Agent Wallet, a self-custodial wallet designed to let AI agents carry out on-chain transactions within limits set by the user. The product targets traders and developers using AI to watch markets, spot trading opportunities, and act without constant manual input. Instead of handing over full wallet control, MetaMask says users can impose spending caps, approve specific protocols, define risk settings, and choose between Guard Mode and Beast Mode for different levels of automation. Agent Wallet supports Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenClaw, Hermes, and OpenCode, along with Hyperliquid and Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible networks. It also includes gas abstraction, which allows network fees to be paid in the asset being moved rather than requiring the chain’s native token. MetaMask said supported transactions go through simulation, threat scanning, and MEV protection, and eligible transactions that pass those checks may qualify for up to $10,000 in monthly Transaction Protection coverage if losses still occur.

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Animoca Brand

2026-08-03 01:14:59

Animoca co-founder says AI agents need crypto wallets to establish ownership

Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu said at WebX 2026 in Tokyo that AI agents will need crypto wallets and ownership frameworks so the economic value they generate belongs to users rather than centralized platforms. He said the number of AI agents could reach 50 billion to 100 billion in the coming years. Animoca Brands is already testing the concept through its internal unit, Animoca Minds, which is operating hundreds of AI agents. The topic came up during a panel titled "AI, IP and the Future of Policy," where the discussion also linked AI agents to intellectual property and the creation of regulatory frameworks. The event was hosted by CoinPost and drew 13,641 participants from more than 90 countries, according to CryptoBriefing.

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Kulipa

2026-07-31 02:40:48

Kulipa shuts down, disrupting card programs tied to about 20 crypto wallets

Paris-based startup Kulipa has abruptly ceased operations over debt repayment issues, according to The Defiant, triggering a halt in card programs used by roughly 20 crypto wallet and fintech companies. The disruption hit self-custody wallet Ready, formerly Argent, and Solana wallet Solflare, with card services suspended immediately for users. The report said user assets were not affected because both wallets use a self-custody model in which funds are debited from users’ wallets only at the time of spending. The shutdown came only about four months after Kulipa raised $6.2 million in a seed round co-led by Flourish Ventures and 1kx in April this year. The episode highlights how operational failures at infrastructure providers can interrupt consumer-facing crypto payment products even when underlying user funds remain untouched.

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AI agents

2026-07-29 13:43:09

Tiger Research says AI agent wallets are becoming crypto’s next battleground as Coinbase and others position for micropayments

Tiger Research argues that crypto wallets are quietly being rebuilt for a world where AI agents, not humans, initiate large volumes of online payments. In that model, a single user request could trigger dozens of machine-made transactions, while individual API calls or data queries may cost as little as $0.001 or even $0.00001. That makes traditional card infrastructure, with chargebacks and fixed per-transaction fees, poorly suited to the task. The report says more than 10 companies are already developing wallets specifically for agents. Coinbase, Binance and other firms are investing despite little visible near-term revenue because they want to secure future users and transaction flow before agent activity scales. Using Coinbase’s disclosed metrics and a base of 9.2 million monthly transacting users, Tiger Research estimates that annual revenue under an aggressive scenario could reach $50.37 billion, roughly 7x Coinbase’s current total revenue. The report also says wallet payment histories could become the basis for credit models and revenue-based financing for agents, much as Stripe Capital used merchant payment data. Still, Tiger Research stresses that this remains a forward-looking scenario. Payment reliability, fragmented protocols such as x402, AP2 and MPP, and unresolved legal and KYC questions continue to limit the market today.

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