Humanity Protocol founder Terence Kwok has confirmed the project is shifting toward enterprise artificial intelligence products following a hack that drained roughly $36 million from its treasury. In his first interview since the June attack, Kwok detailed that the breach originated from malware on a developer’s laptop, not a smart-contract vulnerability, and that private keys belonging to a Humanity Foundation member were compromised after a phishing attempt.
The attack caused the native token H to crash around 89%, sliding from as high as $0.85 to between $0.05 and $0.13 within 24 hours. Onchain analysts estimate over $32 million was stolen, with the attacker also minting and dumping tokens across chains. Kwok called recovery prospects low, drawing comparisons to Bybit’s struggle to reclaim stolen ether, and said the team is instead focusing on a token migration, claims and compensation process. A new token has already been airdropped to major exchanges, though coordination on snapshots, halted deposits and withdrawals, liquidity and custodians remains unresolved.
The pivot is not entirely reactive—Kwok stated the team had been rethinking its direction for six to nine months—but the hack accelerated the move. Humanity Protocol will step back from its blockchain-identity label, even as identity and credentials stay central to the new vision. The project previously built a proof-of-personhood credentialing chain covering employment, assets and credit scoring, including a collaboration with MasterCard on proof of assets. It claims around 10 million sign-ups, with a couple million holding completed credentials.
Kwok firmly denied rug-pull allegations, insisting the team did not dump tokens and remains committed to transparency. The strategic reset aims to target enterprise AI companies, though no product timeline was given. The incident underscores persistent endpoint-security risks and the stark pivot chosen by a project in crisis.
