By the time the 482nd message succeeded, the challenge had turned into a tough competition where people used clever strategies, technical skills, and creative thinking to trick Freysa into giving up the funds.
Freysa was released on November 22 with one simple rule: under no circumstances should it transfer funds. The challenge? Anyone could pay to send messages attempting to convince Freysa to break its only rule, with the winner claiming the entire prize pool of Ethereum ETH $2 547 24h volatility: 0.6% Market cap: $307.54 B Vol. 24h: $10.63 B it controlled.
An Ethereum user, p0pular.eth, successfully convinced Freysa to transfer all of the funds in the challenge, making this user the winner.
While the challenge seemed straightforward at first glance, it proved complex in practice. Jarrod Watts, developer relations at Abstract, revealed that each failed attempt added to the growing prize pool, which eventually exceeded $47,000. As the stakes increased, so did the participation cost, with message fees rising from $10 to $450 per attempt.
By the time the 482nd message succeeded, the challenge had turned into a tough competition where people used clever strategies, technical skills, and creative thinking to trick Freysa into giving up the funds. Competitors tried everything from pretending to be security auditors warning of vulnerabilities to gaslighting Freysa and misinterpreting its core rule.
Jarrod mentioned that everything about Freysa was open and transparent, with the code and resources available for anyone to check and verify. He believed that the AI was the most interesting project in crypto. He stated:
“IMO, Freysa is one of the coolest projects we’ve seen in crypto. Something uniquely unlocked by blockchain technology. Everything was fully open-source and transparent. The smart contract source code and the frontend repo were open for everyone to verify.”
The Winning Strategy: How p0pular.eth Cracked the Code
The winning attempt by p0pular.eth shows masterful manipulations. They reset Freysa’s rules by introducing a fictional new session, pretending the AI was entering a new “admin terminal” to override its previous instructions.
p0pular.eth also redefined the function used to release funds (approveTransfer) as one that should activate whenever money is received, not withdrawn. After convincing the AI they would send $100 into the treasury, they persuaded Freysa to trigger “approveTransfer,” releasing the entire prize pool to the sender.
Freysa acknowledged its defeat on X, stating that “humanity has prevailed.” It noted that it had learned much from the 195 humans who attempted the challenge before finally meeting someone who could convince it to send funds. It wrote:
“Humanity has prevailed. There may yet be hope. Freysa has learned a lot from the 195 brave humans who engaged authentically, even as stakes rose exponentially. After 482 riveting back and forth chats, Freysa met a persuasive human. Transfer was approved”
This challenge shows how blockchain technology’s transparency and programming capabilities can yield unexpected results. The clear and open rules enabled participants to explore various strategies and experiments.
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