Qubic Halts Network After $1.4M Wallet Exploit, Tether Backs AI Agent Startup AIsa

Layer-1 blockchain Qubic paused operations on Sunday after an attacker exploited weak wallet seeds to drain approximately $1.4 million from more than 1,400 accounts. In a statement on X, Qubic said the network was halted at tick 85,371,949 and remained paused at the time of writing. The vulnerability affected seeds generated using any browser on an iPhone or iPad, Safari on a Mac before October 18, 2026, and the Qubic iOS app prior to July 2025, leading to the theft of 2.94 trillion Qubit (QU) tokens. Qubic reported that 87.1% of the drained funds never left the network and remain frozen, while the remaining 12.9% sent to exchange MEXC was frozen within about an hour. The incident echoes earlier seed-related exploits including Coldcard's July firmware bug disclosure and 2023 flaws in Trust Wallet's browser extension and the Libbitcoin Explorer tool.

Stablecoin issuer Tether joined a strategic funding round for enterprise AI agent infrastructure startup AIsa, the company announced Friday. The seed extension round brings AIsa's total funding to more than $9 million, with Tether and HIVEN joining existing backers including Alibaba, Tribe Capital, Sumitomo Corporation, Draper Associates and Saison Capital. "Enterprise AI agents need trusted information, useful tools and a governed way to transact," said AIsa founder and CEO Jordan Liu. The San Francisco-based company is building infrastructure to let AI agents discover, access and pay for resources globally, with enterprises retaining control over permissions, spending and transactions.

In related news, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said the USDC issuer is actively pursuing expansion into roughly 40 developing markets as competition in the stablecoin sector intensifies. Allaire's comments underscore Circle's strategy to capture emerging-market demand for dollar-pegged digital assets, where cross-border payments and remittances remain underserved by traditional banking infrastructure. Meanwhile, major tokens traded modestly higher on the day, with Bitcoin above $114,000, Ether near $2,705, Solana at $105.68 and BNB around $727.60.