MEXC CEO: It's Not Your Seed Phrase AI Will Leak, It's Everything Else

Vugar Usi, who runs major crypto exchange MEXC, says users are guarding the wrong thing. Passwords and seed phrases are locked down — most crypto natives learned that lesson years ago. What worries him is the throwaway stuff: a pet's name here, a rough loss on perpetual futures there, a question about pulling funds off a specific exchange.

None of it looks dangerous alone. Together, Usi argues, those fragments hand a fraudster a ready-made script — one that names a real account and a real problem, and pushes the victim to act fast. The generic "Dear Customer" opener is dead, he says. Leaked names, emails and phone numbers are already floating around in breached databases; an AI chat history supplies the missing context that ties it all into a financial profile.

The trust numbers back him up. A 2024 Experian survey cited by Usi found nearly half of American consumers have used or considered using generative AI to run their personal finances — a figure that jumps to 67% among Gen Z and 62% among millennials. In crypto, a CoinGecko survey found 35.9% of respondents would be comfortable letting an AI agent manage 60% or more of their portfolio, with roughly one in seven ready to hand over the whole thing.

People are already feeding the machines. Cisco research from 2024 found 30% of generative AI users had typed personal or confidential information into these systems, including financial details from 29% and account numbers from 27%. Harmonic Security's analysis of more than 22 million workplace prompts and file uploads in 2025 flagged over 579,000 instances of sensitive data exposure, with sensitive material turning up in about 4.4% of prompts and 22% of uploaded files.

Files are the sneaky one, per Usi. Strip the name and Social Security number off a tax return and it isn't anonymous — employer, income and investment details still point straight at the owner. AI tools don't need account numbers or exact balances to analyze a portfolio anyway. He also warns against assuming the platforms themselves are airtight: in January 2025, Wiz researchers found an exposed DeepSeek database holding more than a million rows of logs, including chat histories and secret keys, with no authentication required. It was locked down after the company was notified.

Usi isn't calling AI uniquely evil — banks and government agencies have been breached too. But he says the principle of data minimization is now paramount, especially as assistants shift from one-off query tools into always-on companions that remember your preferences. The setup comes with a wider backdrop: Bill Gates told CNN in mid-October that cyberattacks would drive the year's most dramatic changes, and coverage of his remarks cites CrowdStrike data showing an 89% year-over-year rise in AI-powered cyberattacks in 2025. Usi's update to the old crypto maxim: alongside "Not your keys, not your coins," add this — if a machine doesn't need to know it, don't tell it.