Humanity Protocol is pivoting away from identity verification and blockchain-based business to enterprise AI products. The move comes weeks after a $36 million hack drained assets and the H token price plunged.

According to a recent report by The Block, Humanity Protocol founder Terrence Kwak (콱) appeared on The Block broadcast "The Starting Block" and said it had been reviewing its business direction over the past 6 to 9 months, and that the hack brought forward a transition that was already under way.

The hack did not start with a smart contract flaw but after a developer laptop was breached. Phishing emails were sent to several members of Kwak's team. No one clicked, but the attacker succeeded in accessing a personal key belonging to a member of the Humanity Foundation.

On-chain analysts estimated that more than $32 million left wallets linked to the project. The attacker minted and sold tokens across multiple chains, and the H token price plunged about 89 percent.

Kwak said the chances of recovering the funds were "quite low". He cited the case of Bybit, which struggled to recover funds after about $1.4 billion in Ethereum was stolen last year, and said it was focusing on rebuilding rather than recovery, with issuing a new token and a foundation-led compensation process as key.

Humanity Protocol has been building a proof-of-humanity-based credential verification blockchain. It expanded into areas including employment, assets and credit rating credentials, and also struck a partnership with Mastercard in the proof-of-assets field. Kwak said about 10,000,000 people had signed up, and that several million of them had completed credential verification.