Crypto Project Pivots to AI After Losing $36 Million in Hack

Humanity Protocol shifts to enterprise AI after a $36M hack drained its funds and crashed its token by 89%.

A crypto company called Humanity Protocol is changing direction after hackers stole $36 million from it. In his first interview since the attack, founder Terence Kwok said the project is now focusing on enterprise AI products (artificial intelligence tools sold to businesses) instead of its original focus on digital identity and blockchain.

The hack happened in June 2026 and was devastating. Here are the key facts:

$36 million was stolen from the project's treasury (its pool of funds).
The project's H token (a digital coin) crashed by about 89% in value.
The attackers didn't break the technology itself — they got in through a phishing email (a fake message designed to trick people into giving up passwords or access).

Interestingly, Kwok said no one on his team actually clicked the phishing email. But the hackers still managed to gain access to private keys (secret passwords that control a crypto wallet) belonging to a team member. Once they had these keys, they drained the wallets and flooded the market with tokens, causing the price to collapse.

The team spotted the problem quickly thanks to monitoring systems that flagged strange activity. However, figuring out the full damage took several days of careful investigation across their devices and networks.

When it comes to getting the money back, Kwok was honest: "I think the chance for actual fund recovery is pretty low." He compared his situation to a much bigger case — the Bybit hack last year, where roughly $1.4 billion in Ether (a major cryptocurrency) was stolen and still hasn't been recovered.

The bottom line: Rather than chasing the lost funds, Humanity Protocol is choosing to rebuild by moving into AI. Kwok said the team had actually been quietly rethinking its direction for the past six to nine months — and the hack simply sped up a change that was already coming.

This is an AI-generated summary. Read the original article at: https://www.theblock.co/post/407049/humanity-protocol-repositions-toward-enterprise-ai-after-36-million-hack-founder-says?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss