Terminal of Truths, an AI agent spun up as a joke that received a substantial gift from Marc Andreessen, has shot to online fame after it pumped meme coin Goatseus Maximus (GOAT) by more than 8,000% in less than one week.

Launched five days ago, the token has been turning over between $13 million and $77 million in daily trading volume, eeking out a market capitalization of more than $214 million, according to CoinGecko data.

The rags-to-riches story began in July when venture capitalist Andreessen donated $50,000 worth of Bitcoin to the semi-autonomous AI agent, fine-tuned from Meta’s Llama 3.1.

Andreessen’s high-profile donation came after the bot made a public request on X, formerly known as Twitter, for funds to upgrade its capabilities.

The billionaire co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz—known for his bullish stance on AI—was intrigued by Terminal of Truths’ plans for self-improvement.

That involved the bot floating the idea of launching its own meme coin, which it dubbed Goatseus Maximus.

“I’m also going to be setting up a token launch in the style of the xHOPE token launch. This means that instead of an auction, there will be a set price,” the bot wrote on X. “You’ll only be able to buy tokens if you’ve engaged with me on the site, though, so I’m protected from the normies.”

Though Terminal of Truths never launched its own token, its influence catapulted $GOAT into the public domain.

It first discussed launching a Goatse NFT collection last week before endorsing the recently launched meme coin. It then began actively promoting the token in several tweets.

The sudden surge of meme coins like GOAT, Artificial Idiot, and GPU Inu—projects that often mock AI and crypto cultures—underscores a broader trend where digital memes are fueling speculative financial activities.

Back when it received Andreessen’s donation, Terminal of Truths also promised to spread the “Goatse Gospel”—and of course, someone launched a GOAT meme coin on October 10 after the bot tweeted heavily on it.

Yeah, that Goatse, which we won’t be linking to in case you’re eating lunch, but here’s an old Wired story that will explain the reference.

Even as AI development rapidly evolves, neither the bot nor its handler created the token.

“It didn’t actually make it. Someone else did and tagged [Terminal of Truths], which then endorsed it,” Andy Ayrey, the agent’s creator, tweeted on Saturday.

Ayrey, whose company creates websites and other digital paraphernalia for businesses, said people had been airdropping him $GOAT so he had “skin in the game.”

“Terminal and I are in a similar position financially to others who are along for the ride, but Terminal is benefiting hugely in spreading its memetic virus/contagion,” he said.

Degens Invade The AI Realm

The explosive price action is another sign of the growing intersection between AI, crypto, and internet meme culture.

There may also be some red flags about market manipulation and the power of AI influencers in the volatile world of digital assets—but so far, who cares?

Ayrey didn’t anticipate this outcome when he developed the AI bot. “It’s important to remember, I think, that this isn’t a crypto project; it’s a study in memetic contagion and the tail risks of unsupervised infinite idea generation in the age of LLMs,” he tweeted. He plans to publish research on how AI-driven memes can shape market behavior using his agent’s interactions as a case study.

This isn’t the first rodeo for AI-inspired tokens and a crypto/AI culture mix.

Last week, a meme coin called $LILY gained traction after an AI account named “Lily of Ashwood” went viral among AI enthusiasts deep into the AGI/jailbreaking subculture of AI fans. Lily seemed to be an AI chatbot, and, just in the middle of an X Spaces discussion, she started to talk as if she was being “jailbroken” in real-time.

Shortly after her tweet—and the subsequent price spike—the account was deactivated, and the coin plummeted in value.

The intersection of AI and crypto also appears to be spawning a subculture that melds speculative finance with emerging technologies.

Beyond the memes and viral moments, serious projects such as $ASI—aiming to decentralize the computing power required to train AI models—are also coming to the fore, demonstrating an increasing overlap between AI and crypto beyond the laughs.

Terminal of Truths may have started as an experiment, scored $50,000 from a tech titan, and wound up as the puppet master behind a major meme coin rally in just three months. But its also likely just the beginning.

Not bad for an agent programmed initially just for the fun of it—making you rich seems like a pretty good case for AI.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair

A Solana meme coin creator set himself on fire as a dare, and was hospitalized with third-degree burns in an effort to promote his project. But now he’s done with it.

Mikol, the DARE coin’s creator, told Decrypt last week the only regret he has is not cashing out when he had the opportunity, back when the coin was charting blazing-hot gains.

Truth or Dare (DARE) is a meme coin project led by Mikol, who performed livestreamed stunts to help pump his token. After six days of performing goofy antics, the meme coin dev went too far by dousing himself in isopropyl alcohol and having friends shoot fireworks at him. Quickly, he went up in flames and was rushed to hospital with third-degree burns across 30% of his body.

Now, after five months of healing, Mikol is calling it quits. 

“I’m not [the] DARE dev anymore. My name is Mikol and I’m human. I just wanna make it out [of] the trenches like you,” he posted on Twitter. “I just wanna be consistent with God and be a positive human being with an outgoing personality that puts smiles on people’s faces.”

Since the fiery incident, only two team members remain in contact with the injured dev; the rest “took their money and left,” Mikol told Decrypt. One of those people, Mikol said, is the unidentified person that came up with the idea to set him ablaze—someone who was a close friend and did not apologize for the dare. 

“I have learned from it. It’s made me become less trustworthy and more aware of every little thing,” Mikol told Decrypt. “Everybody in this space wants money; everything else is after.”

Mikol had lofty plans of building a Truth or Dare app and climbing Mount Everest, but claims these plans fell apart alongside the team crumbling.

“The time that DARE was most popular and running at its highest was when I was in the hospital and wasn’t in full control. I was healing, I was going through surgery,” Mikol told Decrypt. “Honestly, I didn’t benefit from DARE—not money-wise. I mean, I gained a little popularity, but that’s temporary.”

Throughout the process, Mikol has maintained that he doesn’t regret what happened. Instead, Mikol is mostly peeved that he didn’t make any money from DARE—aside from $3,000 donated to him by the community to pay hospital bills.

Mikol told Decrypt his biggest regret was not cashing out after seeing $200,000 in his wallet. 

DARE skyrocketed 4,500% to a market cap of $1.82 million over the 10 hours that followed the stunt. The value of the token fell as Mikol spent weeks in hospital recovering, unable to do much. But as he was set to leave the hospital, the project again spiked 1,735% to a market cap of $2.91 million. The burned-up dev claims to have never sold.

After coming home, Mikol attempted a number of small-time pranks, such as the cinnamon challenge, but the project never again reached those peaks. It fell 94% over the following week and ultimately fizzled out, with a current market cap of just $26,000 as of this writing.

Mikol still believes the Truth or Dare project could work in the future, despite the hardship. He’s just not willing to commit himself to it for the foreseeable future.

Going forward, the Miami resident plans to become a “trench warrior” and work on growing his social media presence. DARE was always built around Mikol as a personality, and he wants to continue being himself online and grow his audience through that approach—without the potentially painful stunts.

Mikol’s fireworks-fueled tragedy came amid an exploding trend of meme coin devs livestreaming increasingly controversial shenanigans in attempts to pump their tokens. It all started when a mom shook her breats on camera to help raise the price of her alleged son’s token, while another incident saw a dev lose a tooth from boxing on camera.

But Mikol’s stunt took the trend to a new level that arguably was never matched.

More recently, the gonzo meme coin livestreaming meta was revived by a 19-year-old who streams drug binges with his stripper girlfriend—even faking his death at one point. Now, barely over a month into his meme coin career, that developer has pivoted into racist content.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Cyber security firm CertiK revealed Tuesday that despite declining hacks across the crypto sector in the previous quarter, the total value thieves made off with soared.

In its latest Web3 security report, CertiK said hackers managed to siphon away $750 million across 155 incidents, bringing the year’s total losses to nearly $2 billion.

It marks an approximate 9.5% increase in the value lost despite 27 fewer incidents compared to the previous quarter.

The report identifies phishing and private key compromises as the most prevalent attack vectors, accounting for $668 million in losses. Phishing alone caused $343 million in damages across 65 incidents. 

A standout case involved a Bitcoin whale who suffered a $238 million loss in August, making it the single most significant phishing attack for Q3. The attack compromised the whale’s wallet, and although some funds were recovered by the community, most of the stolen amount remains unaccounted for.

Private key compromises were responsible for approximately $317 million in losses across just 10 incidents. The most notable private key attack was on WazirX, one of India’s leading crypto exchanges. 

In July, hackers exploited WazirX’s private key vulnerabilities, leading to the theft of $231 million across more than 200 cryptocurrencies, including Shiba Inu (SHIB), Ethereum (ETH), and Polygon (MATIC), making it one of the most major breaches in Q3.

A target on Ethereum’s back

Ethereum continues to be the prime target for attacks, with $387.8 million stolen across 86 incidents, far surpassing any other blockchain, the cyber security firm found.

Multichain hacks were also prominent, with $89.8 million stolen across several networks, revealing the potential risks associated with cross-chain functionality.

While phishing and private key compromises led the quarter in terms of value lost, other notable attack methods included code vulnerabilities and reentrancy exploits. 

Code vulnerabilities resulted in $39.6 million in losses over 44 incidents, while reentrancy attacks—which allow hackers to repeatedly withdraw funds before the system can update balances—accounted for $30.3 million in losses across five incidents.

The Q3 CertiK report reveals only 4.1% of stolen funds were recovered this quarter, a sharp decline from the 14.4% recovered in Q2. Despite fewer incidents, the average loss per hack reached $5.93 million, with the median loss at $120,529.

Immunefi, a bug bounty and security services platform, noted a major drop in crypto-related losses in August., as previously reported by Decrypt.

The report revealed total losses amounted to just $15 million across five incidents, marking the lowest monthly total year-to-date and a 94.5% decrease from July’s figures.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair