Morning Minute: OpenAI and Paradigm Turn Focus to Smart Contracts

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors fall 1-2% amidst Iran escalations; BTC at $66.6k
• Coinbase’s Base announced it’s dropping the OP stack for its own unified client (OP -23%)
• Brian Armstrong called the looming quantum risk a “solvable issue” for crypto
• Hyperliquid launched its Hyperliquid Policy Center with $29M for DC advocacy
• MegaETH introduced its World Markets as first DEX to unify spot trading, lending and perps all onchain with cross margin

?️ OpenAI and Paradigm Turn Focus to Smart Contracts

Smart contracts have lost billions to exploits.

Now the world’s most powerful AI lab and crypto’s most respected research firm are building the tools to end that.

? What Happened

OpenAI and Paradigm jointly released EVMbench yesterday, an open benchmarking framework that evaluates AI agents across three modes:

• detecting vulnerabilities in Ethereum smart contracts
• patching them
• actively exploiting them.

The benchmark draws on 120 curated high-severity vulnerabilities pulled from 40 real-world audits, mostly sourced from Code4rena competitive audit contests. It also includes scenarios from the security audit of Stripe’s Tempo, the payments-focused L1 built with input from Visa, Shopify, and OpenAI.

When Paradigm started this project, top models could exploit fewer than 20% of critical bugs. That number is now above 70%.

OpenAI also expanded the private beta of Aardvark, its dedicated security research agent, and committed $10M in API credits through its Cybersecurity Grant Program to support defensive crypto research.

?️ What They’re Saying

Paradigm, from their EVMbench release: “It’s now clear to us that a growing portion of audits in the future will be done by agents. Hopefully this benchmark, harness, and agent serve both as a preview and an accelerant towards that future.”

OpenAI noted that measuring AI performance in “economically relevant environments is critical as models become powerful tools for both attackers and defenders.”

? Why It Matters

Smart contract exploits have drained over $5B from DeFi in the last two years alone.

EVMbench is OpenAI and Paradigm’s move to stop the drain.

The irony?

The same capability that makes EVMbench powerful (AI that can find and exploit bugs at 72% accuracy) is also the exact threat model the tool defends against. In the wrong hands, a benchmark this precise becomes a hacking playbook.

OpenAI knows this. The $10M Cybersecurity Grant and Aardvark expansion shipped alongside the benchmark for a reason.

But the more important story here is what this signals about the maturity of the AI-crypto integration thesis.

OpenAI, arguably the biggest AI lab on the planet, is formally allocating research resources to Ethereum security. They co-authored this with Paradigm and grounded it in real-world stablecoin infrastructure like Stripe’s Tempo.

This is one of the most meaningful integrations between these two worlds to date.

And don’t expect it to be the last…

? Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are slightly red down 1-2%; BTC -1% at $66.6K; ETH -1% at $1,950; SOL -2% at $81; XRP -4% at $1.41
• No notable movers
• Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon attended the World Liberty Forum, told attendees that crypto firms rejecting the Clarity Act “should move to El Salvador,” and disclosed owning “very little, but some” BTC
• NYSE President Lynn Martin said the exchange felt a “responsibility” to enter tokenization, flagging a 24/7 blockchain trading platform targeting launch later this year
• California finalized DFAL licensing requirements, mandating crypto firms obtain a Digital Financial Assets Law license or exemption to operate in the state
• Coinbase expanded its Morpho-powered crypto lending to XRP, DOGE, ADA, and LTC
• Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong called the quantum risk a “solvable issue” for crypto, speaking to CNBC from the WLFI Forum
• Apex Group ($3.5T AUM) partnered with World Liberty Financial to pilot the Trump-backed USD1 stablecoin for fund operations
• Kraken announced the acquisition of Magna as it prepares for IPO
• Sports betting-focused peer-to-peer app Novig announced a $75M Series B led by Pantera
• Robinhood shared that its L2 testnet processed 4M transactions in its first week

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme majors were mostly red; DOGE -2%, SHIB -4%, PEPE -4%, TRUMP -4%, PENGU -6%, SPX -7%, FARTCOIN -6%
• HOUSE (+100%) and CopperInu (+20%) led top onchain movers on a quiet day

? Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

? What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mixed; Punks even at 29.9 ETH, Pudgy -2% at 4.3 ETH, BAYC +2% at 6.24 ETH; Hypurr’s -4% at 500 HYPE
• Kodas (+5%) and Quirkies (+6%) led top movers