From LIBRA to AI Machines: How Crypto Scammers ‘ Stay Killing ‘ Automated Merchants

Blockchain security company CertiK revealed how a new type of cybercriminals is switching strategies to target automated trading bots in the wake of the LIBRA image gold scandal, which involved insiders receiving in-depth understanding of the release mechanics.

General safety officer of CertiK, Kang Li, spoke with at Consensus in Hong Kong last week and shared insights on how some clever contracts are purposefully being used to target guns themselves.

According to Li,” It turns out that the Artificial buying bots are the objective.”

The perspectives are in response to how Hayden Davis, the self-styled “launch planner” for LIBRA and other brand image cash, described for projects as a “zero-sum match” in which only a few have power.

” Even at the top, all of it is extractive to some degree—none of it has value”, Davis said in an interview with Stephen Findeisen ( Coffeezilla ) last week Sunday, describing how “professional snipers” are involved in meme coin launches, front-running a token and loading up to buy in before a launch is publicly announced.

Smart deal shooting is a technique used by bots to track on-chain activity to identify recently launched tokens and execute trades before trained traders can make a decision. &nbsp,

As soon as there is enough cash, these machines are programmed to execute trades within on-chain system.

Li explains that a new type of advanced scammers is creating false tokens with secret “backdoors” that look like they can trust AI-powered investing bots, which are programmed to identify security risks. &nbsp,

While these Artificial buying bots “are certainly dumb” and evaluate tokens” to see if you have any clear rug-proofing performance it”, scammers have turned this into a bait-and-switch scheme, Li pointed out. &nbsp,

When a coin is released, the swindlers “immediately promote]this ] in all the AI buying community”, and “once they have a few purchases, they floor take it”, Li said.

They simply keep killing

Li challenges the idea that bitcoin protection isn’t required for image coins and pump-and-dump schemes, arguing that the real risks lie in who controls the gift, price adjustment, and the story of those behind it. &nbsp,

These scams are happening on a “massive scale”, possibly causing costs in the “tens of millions of dollars”, Li said. With much fear of constitutional consequences, scammers ‘ simply keep killing’ trading bots, exploiting the lack of a single large victim. &nbsp,

” Law enforcement and regulation, nobody cares about that”, Li said.

Implementing technical solutions without creating new security vulnerabilities is nearly impossible, despite their existence. &nbsp,

” There are some anti-sniping solutions, people can do that to block them in the smart contract layer”, BitLayer founder Charlie Hu told in a separate interview. ” They detect abnormal gas fee payments and transactions, but many teams avoid these protections” .&nbsp,

Although these solutions establish rules to stop sniping, the design of smart contracts can lead to gaps. In other words, sniping bots can still exploit the system if there are no strict regulations on who can trade and how transactions are carried out.

&nbsp,” If developers make it pure permissionless, you just let the scammers go through”, Hu said.