A Single Hack Exposes a Global Vulnerability
When Binance Co-CEO He Yi's WeChat account was hijacked and used to promote a memecoin, many dismissed it as just another crypto-world mishap. It was not. This breach exposed something far more fundamental: the communications infrastructure that billions rely on every day is built on an identity model that no longer works.
The problem is not WeChat alone. The problem is the global system that ties identity to phone numbers, funnels user data into centralized servers, and offers recovery paths that allow platforms, not individuals, to reclaim an account. This structure once seemed convenient. Today, it is a liability woven through every layer of the digital economy. A compromised messaging account is no longer a personal inconvenience. It can move markets, trigger fraudulent transactions, breach corporate systems, and activate AI agents that increasingly mediate how people work and communicate. What happened to He Yi is not an edge case tied to crypto. It is a preview of where the entire internet is headed if the messaging-identity layer is not rebuilt.
Phone Numbers Have Become the Internet's Weakest Link
The WeChat compromise followed a pattern now common across nearly every mainstream messaging platform: identity recovery via a phone number, access to historical communications, and immediate weaponization of trust. This same flow has driven high-impact account takeovers on WhatsApp, iMessage, Telegram, Instagram, Slack, and Teams. The uncomfortable truth is that the recovery feature, designed to protect users, is now the standard attack vector. No amount of two-factor authentication or telecom-level safeguards can secure an architecture in which identity is centralized and recoverable. Billions depend on messaging apps for payments, business approvals, vendor coordination, and password resets. Yet the underlying identity layer is still anchored to a technology created for phone routing, not security. The internet has outgrown the phone number, but our communications systems have not.
AI Raises the Stakes for Account Security
The risk landscape has shifted not because artificial intelligence is inherently harmful, but because compromised accounts now carry far greater consequences. Where account takeovers once resulted in spam, they can now enable voice cloning, convincing impersonation, and automated actions executed at scale. As AI systems increasingly act on users' behalf, including drafting messages, scheduling meetings, or initiating transactions, the integrity of the underlying messaging identity becomes critical. If that identity is stolen, automation works against the user instead of for them. The WeChat breach underscores this reality; AI is not the threat, insecure and recoverable identity systems are. Only when privacy, encryption, and user-controlled authorization are guaranteed can AI agents operate safely and deliver their full value.
Centralized Messaging Cannot Bear This Responsibility
Mainstream messaging apps were never architected to serve as the internet's identity layer, yet that is effectively what they have become. The more functions they absorb, including commerce, payments, business operations, the more catastrophic each breach becomes. Centralized servers create high-value targets, phone-number authentication remains vulnerable to SIM swaps, recoverable accounts leave identity in the hands of platforms rather than users, and cloud backups double as compromise points. These are not patchable flaws; they are inherent to the model.
Decentralized Architecture Is the Only Viable Solution
A growing segment of the industry has moved toward a different principle: the next generation of communication infrastructure must be decentralized, fully end-to-end encrypted, and non-recoverable. Identity must be owned by users, not stored, reset, or accessed by platforms. This is why decentralized messaging tools are emerging not as niche crypto projects but as a necessary response to systemic vulnerability. Vitalik Buterin's recent funding of encrypted communication projects reflects this shift, as do protocol-level advances in decentralized authentication and minimal-metadata messaging.
Messaging platforms built on decentralized or protocol-driven foundations demonstrate the shape of this future. These systems eliminate phone numbers as identifiers, remove centralized data stores, and make message histories non-recoverable. Even if servers are breached, there is nothing to steal. Some platforms, including Luffa, extend this architecture further by integrating secure messaging with payments, wallets, AI agents, and application layers, all protected by the same decentralized model. This moves encrypted messaging from a standalone utility to a foundation for a broader trust layer in Web3-enabled environments.
Rebuilding Trust in the Communications Layer
The lesson from the WeChat hack is not that high-profile individuals are targets. It is that the tools billions of people use to authenticate identity, move money, coordinate work, and communicate with AI systems are built on outdated assumptions. If messaging is now the identity layer of the internet, then it requires the architectural rigor of critical infrastructure. Decentralized, end-to-end encrypted, non-recoverable platforms are no longer an ideological preference. They are the only models capable of standing up to the threat environment that now exists. The incident on WeChat will not be the last. It is a stress test of a system that has reached its limits. The internet needs a new identity layer, and the transition away from centralized messaging must accelerate before the next breach shows just how exposed we already are.
About Michael Liu
Michael Liu, CTO of Luffa, is a cross-disciplinary entrepreneur and technologist with a global track record spanning AI, cybersecurity, energy, and fintech. He previously served as AI Lead at a Global Top 3 energy firm, where he led industrial AI R&D and the commercialization of smart grid intelligence systems. As the Founder of Fam Capital in Silicon Valley, Michael has driven cross-border investments bridging Asia and North America, focusing on deep tech, Bitcoin mining, Web3 infrastructure, and decentralized systems. Holding a background in Electrical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from Harvard University, he combines technical depth with strategic insight. Michael is also a trusted advisor to global founders, known for his ability to align advanced technologies with scalable business outcomes.
About Luffa
Luffa is a next-generation social operating system for the fan economy, giving creators ownership over their communities while allowing fans to turn attention into tangible value. The platform unifies wallet, messaging, loyalty, and engagement in a decentralized environment: fans earn rewards for actions like chatting, tipping, minting tokens, joining "SuperGroups," and completing quests—forming a living fan graph with real-world worth. Luffa emphasizes privacy and security: it is built with end-to-end encryption and zero centralized backups, and supports mnemonic-based registration without requiring phone or email.
Luffa runs on Endless Protocol, a decentralized AI-enabled Web3 infrastructure. In 2025, Endless Web3 Genesis Cloud raised $110 million, reaching a $1 billion post-money valuation. In the broader ecosystem, Luffa is positioned as a core application within Endless, helping bring community, creator tools, and interaction to life on top of the protocol.
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