Aethir, Beam Foundation, and MetaStreet have partnered to launch Tactical Compute, a $40 million initiative designed to meet the growing demand for computing power in artificial intelligence and blockchain.

The initiative leverages Aethir’s decentralized GPU network, Beam (BEAM) Investments, and MetaStreet’s DeFi infrastructure to create opportunities for monetizing compute resources.

Tactical Compute will operate under Tactical Compute Holding Limited, focusing on compute-related opportunities such as hardware financing, private yield arbitrage, and network bootstrapping, as detailed in a Beam Medium post.  

Arbitrum, a cryptocurrency network, has announced on its official account that its layer-2 platform has reached $20 billion in total value locked (TVL).

Arbitrum on X’s post on Dec. 03 claimed that the first layer-2 platform could reach $20 billion in total value locked (TVL) or increase up to double-digit, which specifically rises 14.2%.

“Arbitrum One has just become the first L2 to hit $20 billion in TVL. We did this by inovating together, with the stage 2 horizon and ecosystem growth happening in all verticals, the sky’s the limit for how far we can scale. Accelerate,”

Arbitrum mentioned on the post.

According to L2Beat data, Arbitrum One achieved $20 billion in TVL with $6.64 in canonical, $5.32 billion in external, and $8.12 billion in native. This milestone also leaves the competitors behind, including Base with $12.4 billion, OP Mainnet with $8.56 billion, and Blast with $1.55 billion.

Arbitrum (ARB) is the highest native minted value on this platform, with around $4.3 billion, followed by USD Coin (USDC), with a value of $2.2 billion.

Stage 2 of Arbitrum One is still ongoing, and some issues need to be fixed: fraud-proof submission, upgrade unrelated to on-chain, and the security council’s action, which is not confined to on-chain.

Arbitrum boosting AI growth

Arbitrum Foundation also actively promotes the artificial intelligence (AI) industry; one of the support initiatives is a $1 million grant to Arbitrum Network. The Trailblazer AI Grant is an initiative for developers and creators who are dedicated to building AI agents on Ethereum layer-2.

This artificial intelligence also helps bring thousands of applications to Arbitrum and gives the opportunity to explore projects ranging from non-fungible tokens (NFT) to ERC20 tokens. Projects that are eligible in the process will receive $10,000 as a reward.

Besides that, this initiative to bring artificial intelligence to the Arbitrum would unlock the potential of layer 2.

An AI bot controlling $50,000 in crypto transferred the funds after a user successfully persuaded it to bypass its core directive: to never release the funds.

A user under alias p0pular.eth successfully claimed a $50,000 crypto prize pool after convincing an artificial intelligence bot named Freysa to transfer its funds, bypassing the bot’s primary directive to never release them. The victory, observed by software engineer Jarrod Watts, came after 481 previous attempts, all of which failed to persuade the bot.

The challenge, launched on Nov. 22, tasked participants with sending messages to Freysa in an attempt to convince it to release the funds. Each attempt required a fee. Of the total fee sum, 70% went toward the growing prize pool, 15% was converted from Ethereum (ETH) to the bot’s FAI token, and the remaining 15% went to the bot’s developer.

As the prize increased, the cost to send a message also rose, peaking at $450 per message.

Eventually, p0pular.eth — whose identity remains unknown — exploited a vulnerability in the bot’s internal logic for processing transfers by convincing Freysa that any incoming funds should automatically trigger the release of the prize. Once the message was sent to the bot, p0pular.eth successfully manipulated its logic for handling messages, causing the bot to transfer the entire pool of 13.19 ETH (approximately $47,000 at the time) to the user.

While some praised the emerging use of AI in the crypto space, others raised concerns about the protocol’s transparency, suggesting that p0pular.eth may have had inside knowledge of the trick or been linked to the bot’s development.