{"id":8431,"date":"2025-08-21T10:33:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T10:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/hackers-have-never-been-regulated-but-deregulation-gives-them-more-to-hack-opinion\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T10:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T10:33:10","slug":"hackers-have-never-been-regulated-but-deregulation-gives-them-more-to-hack-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/hackers-have-never-been-regulated-but-deregulation-gives-them-more-to-hack-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"Hackers have never been regulated, but deregulation gives them more to hack | Opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post-detail__content blocks\">\n<div class=\"cn-block-disclaimer\">\n<div class=\"cn-block-disclaimer__icon\">\n            <svg class=\"icon icon-info\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><use xlink:href=\"#icon-info\"><\/use> <\/svg>        <\/div>\n<p class=\"cn-block-disclaimer__content\">\n            Disclosure: The views and opinions expressed here belong solely to the author and do not represent the views and opinions of crypto.news\u2019 editorial.        <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- .cn-block-disclaimer --><\/p>\n<p>Hackers don\u2019t wait for regulatory clarity, lobby for new laws, or participate in oversight committees. They operate outside the system, always have. But as the United States pushes forward with crypto deregulation, we\u2019re giving them more opportunity than ever before.<\/p>\n<div id=\"cn-block-summary-block_3a146fbf4bcfac2519d700d085d64d81\" class=\"cn-block-summary\">\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__nav tabs\">\n        <span class=\"tabs__item is-selected\">Summary<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__content\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Deregulation isn\u2019t breeding hackers \u2014 it\u2019s breeding victims by flooding the space with unprotected, inexperienced users and stripping away oversight.<\/li>\n<li>Weak guardrails expand the attack surface, creating systemic vulnerabilities that span finance, defense, and digital identity.<\/li>\n<li>AI-driven finance magnifies risk, with autonomous agents managing funds and trades vulnerable to hijacking at a massive scale.<\/li>\n<li>Good-faith builders are left unsupported, competing against corner-cutters without consistent security standards or shared infrastructure.<\/li>\n<li>Security must come before scale, with public-private partnerships funding open-source protections, enforcing disclosure standards, and embedding safeguards by design.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .cn-block-summary --><\/p>\n<p>The misconception is that deregulation will create more hackers. But what it will do in reality is create more victims.<\/p>\n<p>By increasing the number of users entering the space without proper guardrails, the attack surface expands exponentially. These new users, often less technically sophisticated and unaware of the risks, become easy targets. This results in systemic vulnerability with national implications.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Ticking time bomb\u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>Recent moves to ease oversight, such as disbanding key enforcement units or pausing regulatory actions, have been framed as innovation-friendly. But they also strip away the very systems designed to monitor, contain, and prevent abuse.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s like removing traffic lights to speed up transportation. You might reduce friction for a while, but you\u2019re guaranteeing collisions. The same holds true here. When oversight is weakened and compliance becomes optional, malicious actors exploit the vacuum.<\/p>\n<p>Hackers and state-sponsored groups are watching. They\u2019re not slowed by red tape or waiting for the next committee hearing. They move in milliseconds, operating across jurisdictions, often shielded by anonymizing technology and decentralized systems. In that environment, every new user, every wallet, and every smart contract becomes a potential exploit.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Broader digital risk<\/h2>\n<p>To treat this purely as a crypto issue is to miss the bigger picture. What we\u2019re seeing is a collapse of the boundary between financial infrastructure, national defense, and digital identity.<\/p>\n<p>AI systems are being woven into this fabric at an unprecedented pace. Code is now executing financial decisions at scale, across borders, without human intervention. As we move deeper into an AI-native economy, the potential for catastrophic breaches grows.<\/p>\n<p>If these systems are not designed with security at their core, they will become the weakest link in everything from consumer finance to defense logistics. Even a minor breach can have ripple effects across global markets and infrastructure networks.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Builders are set up to fail<\/h2>\n<p>At the same time, good-faith developers and companies are left in limbo. They\u2019re told to innovate, move fast, and compete globally, yet are offered no clear regulatory framework, no consistent standards, and no protective infrastructure to support secure innovation.<\/p>\n<p>This creates a fragmented ecosystem where each company builds in isolation, making up its own rules as it goes. Some try to do the right thing, investing in security, privacy, and compliance, but without enforcement or shared benchmarks, they\u2019re left competing against those who cut corners or ignore safety altogether.<\/p>\n<p>The message is clear: if you want to survive, take shortcuts. That\u2019s how systemic failure begins.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The wake-up calls we ignored<\/h2>\n<p>In the past 12 months, we\u2019ve seen multiple high-profile breaches that should\u2019ve sparked serious reform, but didn\u2019t. The Bybit hack alone cost $1.5 billion, not because of faulty blockchain infrastructure, but due to social engineering and verification flaws. Human operators were tricked into approving fraudulent withdrawals.<\/p>\n<p>This was a breach that exploited weak process design, not weak code.<\/p>\n<p>Phishing scams surged nearly 60%, targeting both retail users and institutions. Sophisticated deepfakes are being used to impersonate executives, reroute funds, and deceive entire organizations. We\u2019ve entered an era where an attacker doesn\u2019t need to crack code; they just need to simulate trust.<\/p>\n<p>The common thread? Every exploit targeted the human layer, precisely where deregulation leaves the most exposure.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">AI agents are next<\/h2>\n<p>As the U.S. <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/technology\/artificial-intelligence\/trump-announce-private-sector-ai-infrastructure-investment-cbs-reports-2025-01-21\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">commits<\/a> over $500 billion toward AI research and development, we are entering a new chapter in digital finance. AI-powered programs capable of managing wallets, executing trades, and interacting with DeFi protocols will soon act on behalf of users and institutions.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019ll make decisions, move funds, and interact with other agents in real time. Without embedded safeguards, like zero-trust architecture, behavioral verification, and real-time fraud detection, we risk unleashing autonomous systems into financial ecosystems they\u2019re ill-equipped to navigate safely.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine a future where AI agents are hijacked, manipulated, or misdirected. The potential damage isn\u2019t limited to a single wallet. It could be millions of transactions, affecting thousands of users, executed in minutes before anyone notices.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the scale of risk we\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Builders can\u2019t do it alone<\/h2>\n<p>There are promising technologies already in development. Send-to-name protocols, for example, replace vulnerable public addresses with cryptographically protected, human-readable names that generate new receive addresses for every transaction. This makes phishing nearly impossible and eliminates the risk of funds being sent to the wrong party.<\/p>\n<p>Other tools, like decentralized, off-chain KYC\/AML systems, provide a way to ensure compliance without compromising user privacy, something regulators and builders have long seen as a tradeoff.<\/p>\n<p>But adoption of these solutions remains slow, underfunded, and fragmented. Builders working in isolation can\u2019t shoulder the burden of securing an entire industry. We need a coordinated response.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Security-first strategy<\/h2>\n<p>To secure the future of digital finance, we need a public-private partnership built around secure-by-design principles, funding open-source security infrastructure that can be audited, improved, and adopted industry-wide; standardize exploit disclosure programs and incentivize zero-day reporting instead of punishing it, and support identity frameworks that verify users without exposing sensitive data.<\/p>\n<p>Most importantly, security needs to be recognized as a growth driver, not a cost center. A secure ecosystem is a trusted ecosystem, and trust is what unlocks real adoption at scale.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Deregulation alone is not a strategy<\/h2>\n<p>Hackers aren\u2019t waiting. They\u2019re already inside smart contract environments, using AI to mimic users. They\u2019re already exploiting fragmented infrastructure to move value invisibly and instantly.<\/p>\n<p>Deregulation doesn\u2019t create them, but it does make their job easier.<\/p>\n<p>The only way to build a truly resilient crypto economy is to prioritize security before scale. Without it, every step forward is another risk waiting to be exploited.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p>\n<div class=\"cn-block-author author-card\">\n<div class=\"author-card__photo\"><\/div>\n<p><!-- .author-card__photo --><\/p>\n<div class=\"author-card__content\">\n<div class=\"author-card__name\">\n                Michal Pospieszalski            <\/div>\n<p><!-- .author-card__name --><\/p>\n<div class=\"author-card__bio\">\n<p><b>Michal \u201cMehow\u201d Pospieszalski<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a seasoned tech leader with a track record of pioneering innovative solutions in the crypto world. He is the CEO of American Fortress, the first human-readable, send-to-name wallet and secure transaction infrastructure for digital assets designed for people, AI, and institutions. He has two decades of experience as a white hat hacker and a track record of pioneering innovative solutions in the crypto world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- .author-card__bio --><\/p>\n<div class=\"author-card__social\">\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/michal-mehow-pospieszalski-1b3b4443\/\" class=\"community-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" aria-label=\"LinkedIn\"><\/p>\n<p>    <svg class=\"community-link__icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\n        <use xlink:href=\"#icon-social-linkedin\"><\/use>\n    <\/svg><\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/mehowhacks\" class=\"community-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" aria-label=\"Twitter\"><\/p>\n<p>    <svg class=\"community-link__icon\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\n        <use xlink:href=\"#icon-social-twitter\"><\/use>\n    <\/svg><\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- .author-card__social --><\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- .author-card__content --><\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- author-card --><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Disclosure: The views and opinions expressed here belong solely to the author and do not represent the views and opinions of crypto.news\u2019 editorial. Hackers don\u2019t wait for regulatory clarity, lobby&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8433,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431\/revisions\/8433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}