Humanity Protocol has confirmed it is repositioning toward enterprise artificial intelligence products after a $36 million security breach accelerated an internal strategic overhaul that had already been under discussion for months. According to founder Terence Kwok, the company had been reconsidering its long-term direction for the past six to nine months before the June security breach pushed those plans forward sooner than expected. In his first interview since the attack, Kwok stated that the breach originated from malware installed on a developer's laptop, not from vulnerabilities in the project's smart contracts. Rather than continuing to present itself primarily as a blockchain identity platform, Kwok said Humanity Protocol will increasingly focus on building products and services for enterprise AI customers, with digital identity remaining an important part of the company's work because AI systems will require stronger methods of verifying people and credentials. Kwok firmly denied allegations that the incident was an intentional 'rug pull' designed to deceive investors, asserting that the project did not deliberately dump its tokens and remains committed to transparency and rebuilding trust with its community.
As part of the recovery process, Humanity Protocol has issued a replacement token and distributed it to a range of addresses, including major cryptocurrency exchanges. The centerpiece of the recovery plan involves retiring the old H contract and replacing it with a new, audited ERC-20 token called H, which will serve as the native gas token once the mainnet relaunches. Existing holders will receive an airdrop designed to partially restore the value of their holdings. Kwok was direct about recovery prospects, saying the chance of reclaiming funds is low and comparing the problem to Bybit's struggle to recover roughly $1.4 billion in ether stolen last year. The operational cleanup now looks more complex than a simple relaunch, with discussions continuing around snapshot dates, suspended deposits and withdrawals, liquidity pools and custodian arrangements, while investigators work to identify every transaction that took place after the breach before completing compensation claims. Law enforcement agencies in multiple jurisdictions, beginning with Hong Kong alongside authorities in the United States, have also been contacted as investigations continue.
Earlier findings released by Humanity Protocol and security firm Quantstamp attributed the exploit to compromised private keys stored on a developer device rather than vulnerabilities in the project's smart contracts. The June investigation concluded that attackers obtained control of production systems after a phishing email linked to Bithumb compromised a developer's laptop containing backups of several critical keys. The breach, according to Kwok, began with a compromised developer laptop rather than a smart-contract failure, with a phishing email reaching several team members, and although no one clicked it, attackers eventually obtained private keys tied to a Humanity Foundation member. Onchain analysts estimated wallets linked to the project were drained for more than $32 million, while the attacker minted and dumped tokens across chains. The damage was both financial and reputational, with H falling roughly 89% from prices of $0.67 to $0.85 before the exploit to $0.05 to $0.13 within about 24 hours. Kwok emphasized that the incident was not a result of flaws in the blockchain infrastructure itself, but rather a security lapse at the endpoint level, with the attack originating from malware installed on a developer's device that compromised private keys.
According to the latest market data, Humanity Protocol's H token is currently trading at $0.06861 USD, representing a 3.53% decline over the past 24 hours. The token has a market capitalization of $194.31 million with a circulating supply of 2.83 billion H tokens. Over the past 30 days, H has experienced significant volatility, declining by 88.60% to its current price level. The token's all-time high stands at $0.8534460005351715, while the all-time low was $0.00087050543133905. During the last 24 hours, H traded between $0.06516 (low) and $0.07228 (high), with total trading volume reaching $406.02K. The current market sentiment shows 72% bullish and 28% bearish sentiment among traders, reflecting mixed expectations for the project's recovery and strategic pivot.
