Developer Loses $40K in 2 Minutes After Posting Secret Key on GitHub
A costly mistake sends waves through the crypto community
A Web3 developer's mistake led to a rapid $40,000 loss after accidentally exposing his wallet keys on GitHub.
On June 5, Brian Guan, co-founder of the Web3 streaming app Unlonely, shared a shocking incident on X, revealing that he lost $40,000 within two minutes after making his wallet keys public in a GitHub repository. Guan admitted to forgetting that his secret keys were stored in the repository.
The crypto community had varied responses to Guan's post. Some members expressed sympathy and support, while others criticized him by digging up his past comments about using OpenAI’s ChatGPT for coding.
One supportive community member shared their empathy, wishing Guan a swift recovery. Conversely, critics highlighted a 2023 post where Guan criticized high salaries for smart contract engineers, suggesting that developers should use ChatGPT to write Solidity code.
This led to a satirical response from community member Foobar, who mocked Guan's previous stance by suggesting developers should store private keys on GitHub with ChatGPT's help. Another user pointed out that Guan's opinions reflected "Gen Z entitlement."
Despite the controversy around using ChatGPT for coding, a memecoin created using the AI chatbot has seen significant success. On May 28, Turbo, a memecoin developed by digital artist Rhett Mankind in April 2023, hit a new all-time high, boosting its market capitalization to over $600 million. Mankind utilized ChatGPT to guide the creation of what he aimed to be "the next great" memecoin.
This incident underscores the importance of securing private keys and the divided opinions on AI's role in software development within the crypto community.